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Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: April 13, 2010, 11:59:17 AM »

Quote from: "StratPlayer"
Finally made it through all 17 chapters...  :)

Quote
And a newbie question -- are ALL first contact encounters hostile?  What's the liklihood that a NPR is non-aggressive when a PR first meets them?
At the time of this campaign, all NPRs were hostile. Since then some diplomacy has been added so you can meet neutral NPRs who may eventually become friendly and even allied.

Steve
Posted by: StratPlayer
« on: April 13, 2010, 10:04:47 AM »

Finally made it through all 17 chapters...  :D

Nice work, Steve!  Entertaining, captivating, and fun to read!

Sad to see what happened to Earth -- those dang fanatical Chinese!  

I also liked the close POV of the leaders during the early story, but we kind of left President V. once the Commonwealth was united and the story expanded into space.  BTW, he's also been President for a LONG time.  How old was he at the end of chapter 17???

And a newbie question -- are ALL first contact encounters hostile?  What's the liklihood that a NPR is non-aggressive when a PR first meets them?
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: March 10, 2010, 10:39:58 AM »

Quote from: "theonlystd"
Finally finished reading this over the last few days.

Good writing ...
Thanks. I enjoyed writing it :)

Steve
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: February 04, 2010, 11:15:02 AM »

Quote from: "mrwigggles"
Is the name tolan a reference to stargate?
I think it was Tulan. It wasn't a stargate reference

Steve
Posted by: mrwigggles
« on: February 02, 2010, 06:42:51 PM »

Is the name tolan a reference to stargate?
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: February 02, 2010, 08:19:17 AM »

Quote from: "TheLastRonin"
Steve (sorry if this has been answered) are you playing all the Earth factions or are you playing one and letting the AI do the rest? If so which one are you playing? I'm reading through the first part of your write-up and I'm wondering how you got such detailed information without controlling all the factions?
I am playing all the Earth factions. Some of the aliens are AI-controlled (The ones that attacked New London for example) but the Tulan were controlled by me.

Steve
Posted by: waresky
« on: February 01, 2010, 03:55:13 PM »

Awesome's Steve "EvilMind" when take a Alien's side:P

I like that.

George.
Posted by: Father Tim
« on: February 01, 2010, 07:39:29 AM »

This campaign predates the NPR AI programming, so Steve was playing all the factions (as well as the aliens).  Steve has said the separate naming themes and maps really help him get in the 'mindset' of each empire, and base decisions only on what they know.
Posted by: TheLastRonin
« on: January 31, 2010, 09:45:33 PM »

Steve (sorry if this has been answered) are you playing all the Earth factions or are you playing one and letting the AI do the rest? If so which one are you playing? I'm reading through the first part of your write-up and I'm wondering how you got such detailed information without controlling all the factions?
Posted by: Morrigi
« on: January 22, 2010, 02:33:25 PM »

Great series, great stories. I spent last night and a good part of today reading them, having nothing else to do. They're helping me understand aurora a bit more which is always great for a noob like me :P
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: January 15, 2010, 02:36:15 PM »

Quote from: "mrwigggles"
Boo!

This story has been so freaken awesome so far, and having it end with no conclusion is making me all foamy at the mouth!

I spent two day straight reading it.
Allowing me to write stories like this one is why I designed Aurora. Unfortunately, I then add a few new toys and decide to start a new campaign :). Eventually I will recreate a Rigellian Diary type campaign (one I played in Starfire with a write-up much longer than this one), that will really grab my imagination and go on for months or maybe even years.

Steve
Posted by: mrwigggles
« on: January 15, 2010, 02:30:28 PM »

Boo!

This story has been so freaken awesome so far, and having it end with no conclusion is making me all foamy at the mouth!

I spent two day straight reading it.
Posted by: sloanjh
« on: June 27, 2009, 01:03:33 AM »

Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
have been thinking about surrenders, partly because of the above situation and partly to make true pirates more doable. I think the simplest way would be to carry out some form of check when a ship was damaged. If the ship is unarmed or unable to fire and there are no friendly forces within a certain range then I think surrender should be possible. I just need to work out some parameters. As to boarding, I am not against the idea but I would need to come up with some realistic mechanism. Perhaps a fighter-size craft with a mechanical grapple and a new Marines/Barracks system for ships. The actual combat resolution for boarders shouldn't be too difficult.....
I was actually (partially) wondering if you've thought about the physical mechanism a ship would use to indicate that it's surrendered, especially if it was a "first contact" situation (i.e. no comms).  The Honorverse uses "striking the wedge", but in Aurora that could just mean total engine failure (but still working weapons systems), plus who knows if an alien would recognize that as a surrender signal.  The easy (i.e. most I would lobby for in 4.1) option is to assume the odds of a surrender being recognized is folded into the surrender chance, i.e. not deal with it :-)  This issue is also (partially) why I mentioned boarding - the real test of whether an enemy has surrendered is when you try to put a prize crew on board....
Quote
For v4.0 it would have to be deity-like powers but on the new v4.1 Foreign Relations window, you get a picture of any race with which you establish comms. I guess I could update that to include any race for which you have prisoners. Capturing crews adds espionage points. You get one point for every 10 crew and the cube of the rank of any captured officer. So 1 point for rank 1, 8 points for ranks 2, 27 points for ranks 3, etc. Once you reach 100 points you get a check on the espionage table, although that will not always result in gaining knowledge. If you don't have comms then any points gained from this source are reduced by 80%
Aaaah - that probably explains it.  I've been picking up ~20-50 personnel per ship, and gathered crew from ~20 ships, so I'm probably only just now reaching the 100 points.  Will the message tell me if I picked up any officers?  So far I haven't seen any....

John
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: June 26, 2009, 10:00:35 PM »

Quote from: "sloanjh"
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
With no resistance evident and no way to demand surrender, Bellerophon's captain, Commander Valentine Lamarliere, ordered his tactical officer to turn all available weapons on the alien, obliterating it in a hail of fire.
Have you thought at all about surrender mechanisms?  I've run into this situation a lot - I ambush an unarmed survey vessel (silly aliens - always trying to survey the same survey point...), knock out all its engines, then have to destroy the hulk because there's no way to demand or recognize surrender.  I like the idea of boarding shuttles and boarding parties/marines, but realize that's a bit much on the coding side....
I have been thinking about surrenders, partly because of the above situation and partly to make true pirates more doable. I think the simplest way would be to carry out some form of check when a ship was damaged. If the ship is unarmed or unable to fire and there are no friendly forces within a certain range then I think surrender should be possible. I just need to work out some parameters. As to boarding, I am not against the idea but I would need to come up with some realistic mechanism. Perhaps a fighter-size craft with a mechanical grapple and a new Marines/Barracks system for ships. The actual combat resolution for boarders shouldn't be too difficult.

Quote
Quote
The aliens were humanoid in shape, although taller than humans, and had a knobbly, chitinous exoskeleton covering their entire body.
How did your race figure this out?  The "Races" (ctrl-F2) screen doesn't show any computer-controlled NPR for me, even if they've been contacted/captured.  (BTW, I'm expecting an answer of "I used my deity-like powers as the author of the game :-)
That is a good idea. In this case the chance to hit was 47% so I just rolled horribly :)

Steve
Posted by: sloanjh
« on: June 26, 2009, 09:14:10 PM »

Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
With no resistance evident and no way to demand surrender, Bellerophon's captain, Commander Valentine Lamarliere, ordered his tactical officer to turn all available weapons on the alien, obliterating it in a hail of fire.
Have you thought at all about surrender mechanisms?  I've run into this situation a lot - I ambush an unarmed survey vessel (silly aliens - always trying to survey the same survey point...), knock out all its engines, then have to destroy the hulk because there's no way to demand or recognize surrender.  I like the idea of boarding shuttles and boarding parties/marines, but realize that's a bit much on the coding side....

Quote
The aliens were humanoid in shape, although taller than humans, and had a knobbly, chitinous exoskeleton covering their entire body.
How did your race figure this out?  The "Races" (ctrl-F2) screen doesn't show any computer-controlled NPR for me, even if they've been contacted/captured.  (BTW, I'm expecting an answer of "I used my deity-like powers as the author of the game :-)" )  

BTW, I've also not yet seen any intel come out of prisoner interrogations, even though I've probably captured prisoners from 20-30 ships from this race (although I forgot to attempt communications for a long time, so only 10 pickups might have happened since I had comm established).
Quote
Guessing it was too small to be a warship, Rear Admiral Gilles assumed it was some type of scout or survey ship and ordered the launch of a single volley of ten SS-N-2 Sunburns. Forty-two minutes later, with no sign of defensive fire, the missiles reached the alien vessel. Despite almost a fifty percent chance to hit, only two missiles struck their target, both of which resulted in atmosphere loss.
I noticed a similar effect (few hits from big salvo) when ambushing survey ships.  To counter-act it, I've started using ripple-fire volleys, where I fire one missile every 5 seconds for a fleeing or stationary target (for a closing target, I would probably use a 10 second spacing).  The advantage of this is that the first hit slows down the target, raising the hit probability of follow-on missiles.  The ripple fire is a bit of a micro-management pain to control, though, since you have to advance in 5-second increments and change launcher assignments every timestep.  I suspect you wouldn't want to ripple-fire at a target that had anti-missile defenses, though :-)

John