Aurora 4x
C# Aurora => C# Mechanics => Topic started by: Steve Walmsley on December 03, 2023, 09:23:51 AM
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Thread for discussion of changes announced for v2.2.0. Please do not post bug reports or unrelated suggestions in this thread.
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With the new jump drive changes ; it looks like jump capable fighters are more plausible now from my impression.
X-Wings...
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With the new jump drive changes ; it looks like jump capable fighters are more plausible now from my impression.
X-Wings...
Hum, there are new disadvantages to jump fighters, with jump drives becoming more efficient as they get larger. And relative to the old version, smaller ones cost more now while larger ones are getting cheaper, though that seems to be more correcting an oddity in jump drive cost. It seems to me the continuation of the trend of larger ships getting more efficient that's been going on for awhile.
But it is true that the biggest obstacle to jump fighters was always the minimum jump size for a squadron jump (well, that and the micromanagement of dealing with potentially dozens of fighter squadrons jumping). So maybe.
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With the new jump drive changes ; it looks like jump capable fighters are more plausible now from my impression.
X-Wings...
Hum, there are new disadvantages to jump fighters, with jump drives becoming more efficient as they get larger. And relative to the old version, smaller ones cost more now while larger ones are getting cheaper, though that seems to be more correcting an oddity in jump drive cost. It seems to me the continuation of the trend of larger ships getting more efficient that's been going on for awhile.
But it is true that the biggest obstacle to jump fighters was always the minimum jump size for a squadron jump (well, that and the micromanagement of dealing with potentially dozens of fighter squadrons jumping). So maybe.
I need to edit the post, but I also removed the previous minimum jump drive cost of 10 BP, so the smaller drives are now cheaper.
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With JJ changes this'll be save breaking I'm guessing?
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Any editing of data base will result in saves being gone since they are kept in the same data base. I'm guessing it would be quite a hurdle to separate saves from main data base.
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Extremely tiny nit: the last column of the spreadsheet for jump drive changes should be labeled "Commercial Drive Size (Tons)" but is labeled "Commercial Drive Size (HS)".
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The new Jump Drive changes look nice.
Does this signal a shift from bugfixing the recent releases to working on the next major release?
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The new Jump Drive changes look nice.
Does this signal a shift from bugfixing the recent releases to working on the next major release?
Personally I am hoping we get the drive changes and then Steve starts on a 2.5 which will be a major release. Seems like most of the obvious bugs have been found now so 2.4 should be a stable version for AARs.
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It maybe a little while before v2.4.0 releases as I want to test the new JD changes. Before that test happens, I am working on a mini-project to increase the number of known systems from 4500 to over 60,000, which would cover everything within 750 light years of Sol. In the past, I manually entered all the systems and calculated their positions as needed, which took a LONG time. Now I am trying to convert part of the Hipparchus Star Catalog into a format that Aurora can use using a mainly automated process, although some manual work is still required..
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It maybe a little while before v2.4.0 releases as I want to test the new JD changes. Before that test happens, I am working on a mini-project to increase the number of known systems from 4500 to over 60,000, which would cover everything within 750 light years of Sol. In the past, I manually entered all the systems and calculated their positions as needed, which took a LONG time. Now I am trying to convert part of the Hipparchus Star Catalog into a format that Aurora can use using a mainly automated process, although some manual work is still required..
That sounds awesome!
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Instead of making the extra ships not take any more tonnage and instead increase cost why not instead remove the number of ships restriction and restrict jump drives to TOTAL tonnage.
So for example if you had a 5000ton jump drive on a 1000ton ship you could jump 4 other 1000ton ships, or you could jump 8 other 500ton ships.
I feel like big ships have a lot on benefits at the moment and this change would really benefit smaller ships.
This would be my preferred option to not overcomplicate the system. with the new system already proposed a squad of beam fighters can have a single jump ship with them and increasing efficiency tech doesn't really make that jump ship any better as even a small jump drive on a fighter means it will sacrifice it's gun or fuel etc. meaning it can't keep up with the other fighters/FACs and still be in the fight.
with my proposal jump fighters can swap their weapon out for a jump drive of maximum size that will fit inside the ship and will then be able to jump more and more other fighters as efficiency increases.
If you wanted to discourage spamming ships you could make a multiplier per ship you are jumping and make that a new tech line.
So each ship added multiplies total tonnage available by 0.8 at the start and 0.98 at max tech.
so the example before becomes a 5000ton jump drive on a 1000ton ship can transport 2 other ships of 1100tons since 5000x0.8x0.8 = 3200 tons the total tonnage of all 3 ships, and it can transport very few 500ton ships but still more than the 1100ton ships.
This would prevent a large ship being able to jump 100's of tiny ships.
The 2nd option is a lot more complicated and i don't think is required.
Just some food for thought. I still like the proposed changes as they stand.
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I am working on a mini-project to increase the number of known systems from 4500 to over 60,000, which would cover everything within 750 light years of Sol. In the past, I manually entered all the systems and calculated their positions as needed, which took a LONG time. Now I am trying to convert part of the Hipparchus Star Catalog into a format that Aurora can use using a mainly automated process, although some manual work is still required..
Oh my! Huge work!
But my game become extremely slow paced (not a game program but my game decisions and management) when I develop 2 major colonies (not a mining outposts). I can't imagine what I will do with 60k systems.
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It maybe a little while before v2.4.0 releases as I want to test the new JD changes. Before that test happens, I am working on a mini-project to increase the number of known systems from 4500 to over 60,000, which would cover everything within 750 light years of Sol. In the past, I manually entered all the systems and calculated their positions as needed, which took a LONG time. Now I am trying to convert part of the Hipparchus Star Catalog into a format that Aurora can use using a mainly automated process, although some manual work is still required..
That sounds awesome!
Yes, it is fascinating, but I am also learning just how inaccurate some data can be. I have a spreadsheet with 65,000 stars that I exported from Hipparchus and is the basis of the future known star list. I have been trying to parse text fields into usable data. For example, the spectral type is reported in many different ways. The normal way is single letter (there are about 10 options), followed by 0-9 followed by a roman numeral from 1-7, with an optional small case a/b for some supergiant stars. For example G2V or K0III, etc.. In the catalog the majority of the entries in that column seem to be just free text such as sdM4, dM5.5eJ, M1/M2V, A0m..., M3.5Vvar, etc., so I had to write some excel functions to extract what I needed.
There are multiple names for each star. The 'popular' name and then names from many different star catalogues, seven of which (Gliese, Gliese-Jahreiss, Woolley, HR, HD, HIP, Bayer-Flamsteed) are included in the Hipparchus data along with the popular name. Everything has a HIP entry and usually one or two of the others. For example, Proxima Centauri is also known as Alpha Centauri C, V645 Centauri, GJ 551, HIP 70890, CCDM J14396-6050C, LFT 1110, LHS 49, LPM 526, LTT 5721 and NLTT 37460.
Bayer Flamsteed is an old system that created the Greek letter plus constellation, such as Alpha Centauri or Delta Pavonis, and also number/constellation such as 61 Cygni, which they ran out of greek letters. In the HIP data, they give this in the format of 61SigDra, Del Pav, 24Eta Cas, 107 Psc, 37Xi Boo, 40Omi2Eri, etc. with random amounts of spaces. So you sometimes have up to three leading numbers but not always, then a Greek letter shortened to 3 letters, except for the four Greek letters that only have two characters, then sometimes a number in the middle and then a three letter constellation at the end. Another fun parsing task :)
For this new list I am choosing from the different catalogues in order, taking the first one that has text. I start with the popular name if given, if not I use Bayer Flamsteed, then Gliese, etc. Unfortunately I didn't have that method when I did my original list, so in a lot of cases the new name doesn't match the current name. I have about 4500 stars in the Aurora database but only 3500 that match the new list. Some of that is because I added stars discovered after the catalogue was created and also a lot of brown dwarfs from the WISE catalogue, etc. So I would prefer to add to my current table, not replace it. That means I have to go through the non-matches and figure out why, which is what I am going right now.
Sometimes it is because I used a different name, or the star in the new list doesn't exist in Aurora, but also finding some weird situations like a star that is in the HIP data, but doesn't exist because it was just a light artifact, or stars that were listed as 15 LY, but are actually 2300 LY, etc. Its a slow process. I might ultimately just replace the list and try to add the old data back in, but I still would need to check that I don't end up putting the same star in twice with different names.
Finally, many of the more distant HIP stars will be multi-star systems, but reported as single stars because they can't be separated at that distance. I will need to add some random binaries and trinaries to balance or all the distant systems will be single star.
Anyway - whatever I end up doing, it won't be quick :)
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The new Jump Drive changes look nice.
Does this signal a shift from bugfixing the recent releases to working on the next major release?
Yes, unless some major bug pops up.
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Yes, unless some major bug pops up.
Just to clarify, 2.4 will not be released soon? I wanted to start the game finally after initial bugfixes, but that Jump Drive change is so sweet for my play style that i decided to wait.
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Yes, unless some major bug pops up.
Just to clarify, 2.4 will not be released soon? I wanted to start the game finally after initial bugfixes, but that Jump Drive change is so sweet for my play style that i decided to wait.
Not in the immediate future unless some major bug pops up.
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Yes, unless some major bug pops up.
Just to clarify, 2.4 will not be released soon? I wanted to start the game finally after initial bugfixes, but that Jump Drive change is so sweet for my play style that i decided to wait.
Not in the immediate future unless some major bug pops up.
Quick someone break something! ;D
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Am I correct in assuming that the jump drive changes will not change that the jump drive jump capacity will still be tied to the drive itself and not the ship it’s on?
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I'm curious if there are any plans to reactivate the advanced weapon variants. I've only really observed the advanced railgun so far but it seems like although you can research it (provided you dig it up), it won't show up under the available options when designing a railgun. DB editing to change the TechTypeID does to match the railgun does work but the properties don't properly carry on when doing this (they have 4 shots instead of the 5 they're supposed to have). I'm assuming this is also true for other cases.
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Wow Steve, few days ago you said the new star catalog won't be done quickly and here it is instead!
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Wow Steve, few days ago you said the new star catalog won't be done quickly and here it is instead!
I have done nothing for the last few days except cross-reference a multitude of spreadsheets and databases, apart from occasionally sleeping or eating :)
Once or twice, a family member would pop their head into my office and be met with a glazed look as I attempted to convert my brain back to normal conversation :)
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What about writing a program to do the cross referencing for you?
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What about writing a program to do the cross referencing for you?
It's not that straightforward, especially with many different data sources in different formats, covering different subsets of stars for different purposes, mostly with free text information and no APIs. Humans are still better in that situation than computers.
Otherwise, some very smart person would already have a master database of stars created for more scientific purposes than Aurora, and then I could have used that :)
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What about writing a program to do the cross referencing for you?
It's not that straightforward, especially with many different data sources in different formats, covering different subsets of stars for different purposes, mostly with free text information and no APIs. Humans are still better in that situation than computers.
Otherwise, some very smart person would already have a master database of stars created for more scientific purposes than Aurora, and then I could have used that :)
What about recruiting slave labor from your devoted, loving and doting fans in this forum? I'm sure there would be no shortage of volunteers and many who wouldn't resist even if voluntold!
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What about writing a program to do the cross referencing for you?
It's not that straightforward, especially with many different data sources in different formats, covering different subsets of stars for different purposes, mostly with free text information and no APIs. Humans are still better in that situation than computers.
Otherwise, some very smart person would already have a master database of stars created for more scientific purposes than Aurora, and then I could have used that :)
And as soon as you're done, some very smart person will hack it out of the Aurora DB and use it for some scientific purpose! Hopefully thanking you for your work!
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Otherwise, some very smart person would already have a master database of stars created for more scientific purposes than Aurora, and then I could have used that :)
I find it hard to believe that there isn’t already a better data source than that. It’s obviously moot now that the work is done, but I would have tried to find some real astronomers to see if they really deal with data that is that bad all the time, or if they have a better source.
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Otherwise, some very smart person would already have a master database of stars created for more scientific purposes than Aurora, and then I could have used that :)
I find it hard to believe that there isn’t already a better data source than that. It’s obviously moot now that the work is done, but I would have tried to find some real astronomers to see if they really deal with data that is that bad all the time, or if they have a better source.
I did a lot of searching on 'best star catalogue', etc. before going back to HYG. Each catalog is trying to do something different and is restricted by the technology used to conduct the search. For example, some telescopes don't work well at certain wavelengths, so the stars at those wavelengths are less accurate. Some are only interested in certain types of stars, or above a certain magnitude, or within a set distance, etc.
I did find this source, which has done some work on combining three catalogs, but it was the same cross-reference I used and still has the HYG free text for spectral class and Bayer-Flamsteed and doesn't link binaries, so not much advantage for me beyond the basic HYG database.
https://www.astronexus.com/hyg
Bear in mind, that for astronomy, relative 3D coordinates in space or accurate binary separation are not that useful. It tends to be more about the night sky location, or optical separation. There hasn't been the need to build something to do what I need, apart from a game like Elite Dangerous, which uses SIMBAD data.
https://wiki.ed-board.net/en/
Finally, its actually good to get hands-on with the data, because you get much more of a feel for what you are dealing with and you learn a lot when you have to solve problems and understand how and why things work in astronomical data. Even if I had ended up with nothing, the last few days would have been worth the effort for the education alone.
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It's great to see that you are adding more Naming Themes. Never enough to choose from. ^^
But waht about updating or fixing some of the Themes from us users?
Two examples (absolute coincidence that these are from me ;D):
System Theme - Germany https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10472.msg153960#msg153960
and the one below that "german Marine (Navy) ranks"
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I love the naming additions and the jump drive changes as well. Wondering if this means a Star Trek AAR in the near future? :)
I did a star trek run a year or so ago and the naming stuff and especially the jump drive stuff woulda been neat. I ended up just turning on "all jump points stabilized" because I think it fit star trek better.
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Thanks for the minor races!
In my solo campaigns where I control also alien races, my random generator has also minor races. It is a great addition for the solo campaigns vs CPU, at least for me.
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Minor races are interesting because you could theoretically have them as a "vassal" state of sorts which you can completely control the expansion of through jump stabilization.
That could even be an interesting suggestion for extending diplomacy even. Though idk how you'd organize the tribute in that system.
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Obviously, Steve is planning a Star Trek AAR. :) I'm probably going to go with a Bab5 run once 2.4 comes out, assuming that the change with custom NPRs is also in 2.4.
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Obviously, Steve is planning a Star Trek AAR. :) I'm probably going to go with a Bab5 run once 2.4 comes out, assuming that the change with custom NPRs is also in 2.4.
I think so! Would he go for the Federation? That is a peaceful exploration game in theory...With the minor races addition, he could go for the Vulcans and act as the Galaxy protector of new space races. Personally, would be great to go full Klingon and just have a total war setup, as I don't remember him doing anything like that ever.
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I missed the minor races addition until I saw the comments in this thread. Very cool! The idea of having a bunch of starting player races and being able to generate minor NPRs is an excellent one for immersion! ;D
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I really like the minor races addition, it will add a lot I think.
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It would be nice if there was an export feature for the player races, NPRs, and minor races. Keep the naming themes, flags, ships, stations, ranks, etc.
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It would be nice if there was an export feature for the player races, NPRs, and minor races. Keep the naming themes, flags, ships, stations, ranks, etc.
Ya would be cool. Could allow people to pre-build full universes for the different sci fi franchises. The ability to import your work for a new game or allow other player to include it in their games. A similar export would also be nice for the ground forces to. So much work goes into designing large organization it would be nice be able to import orgs you've done from older games on the same aurora version or adopt ones other players have done.
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Did anyone else miss the subtle halving of colony cost reduction tech? This is looking good.
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Did anyone else miss the subtle halving of colony cost reduction tech? This is looking good.
And "The colour of system bodies on the System View window takes account of any colonization cost reduction tech." I will actually research this tech-line now!
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What about writing a program to do the cross referencing for you?
It's not that straightforward, especially with many different data sources in different formats, covering different subsets of stars for different purposes, mostly with free text information and no APIs. Humans are still better in that situation than computers.
Otherwise, some very smart person would already have a master database of stars created for more scientific purposes than Aurora, and then I could have used that :)
Sounds like a very interesting problem. Maybe you could be that very smart person and turn your passion into a genuine advancement for astronomy
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It would be nice if there was an export feature for the player races, NPRs, and minor races. Keep the naming themes, flags, ships, stations, ranks, etc.
Ya would be cool. Could allow people to pre-build full universes for the different sci fi franchises. The ability to import your work for a new game or allow other player to include it in their games. A similar export would also be nice for the ground forces to. So much work goes into designing large organization it would be nice be able to import orgs you've done from older games on the same aurora version or adopt ones other players have done.
This would be really cool. I built an entire replica of the (incredibly tiny) KSP Kerbol system and built a game around it. Would be cool to be able to expoet stuff like that. I don't mind doing it again but also making it easier to share would be nice. Although granted you can probably make a copy of your save before starting your campaign to share a certain custom starting system or something.
This makes me think of the issue of save compatability (or lack thereof), most of the sting of new releases breaking saves isn't restarting a campaign (I never get far enough usually to even meet an NPR), it tends to be rebuilding your starting empire and starting system if you made one.
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Can't wait the tiny cargo bay for the shuttles :P :P
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So the change to Known Stars (from 4,400 to over 63,000 known systems) had me wondering what the distribution of systems looks like now. Mainly I was wondering how it might affect the rate of coming across starting NPRs in a given min-max range. So I made a graph because of course I did.
(https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=13374.0;attach=7865;image)
Basically, nearly all of the new systems are beyond 100 LY, so as long as your maximum starting NPR distance is under 100 LY there will be basically no change in the rate of discovering the starting NPRs (it might be slightly lower but not very noticeably so). In case anyone was worried...
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So is 2.4.1 actually 2.5 now? The addition of the shuttle sized cargo bay sounds like a DB change.
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So the change to Known Stars (from 4,400 to over 63,000 known systems) had me wondering what the distribution of systems looks like now. Mainly I was wondering how it might affect the rate of coming across starting NPRs in a given min-max range. So I made a graph because of course I did.
This is rather interesting. I did not realize how many systems are within a given distance of Sol. It definitely makes me question what settings to use for NPR min/max distances!
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I might suggest that the checkbox to display CC-based colors in the mineral search should be on by default, I suspect that most players will prefer having it on and those who don't will be ambivalent.
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One option I would love on the mineral search window, would be to exclude colonised bodies - its main purpose is to find potential colonies, and existing ones are kind of clutter when doing that.
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One option I would love on the mineral search window, would be to exclude colonised bodies - its main purpose is to find potential colonies, and existing ones are kind of clutter when doing that.
Agreed. It is worth noting that this became relevant since we now have a more useful empire mining screen, otherwise, having also colonized bodies was essential to understand what was required on a larger scale.
Eventually, would be good also to sort comets out, since you can sort pretty much everything by body kind beside them on that screen.
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With the 2.5.1 changes so far, is the current best guess that this will be a save-game compatible update (hence the .1 version?). Jonesing to start a new campaign but excited for some of the fixes going into 2.5.1!
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If you're playing a 2.5.0 game, then yes, 2.5.1 will be save game compatible.
But seeing as you posted in the 2.4.0 changes thread, then your game will not be compatible with the latest version.
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If you're playing a 2.5.0 game, then yes, 2.5.1 will be save game compatible.
But seeing as you posted in the 2.4.0 changes thread, then your game will not be compatible with the latest version.
Thanks! I would be starting a new 2.5.0 game. I looked for a 2.50 Changes Discussion thread, but only saw the 2.4.0 one so assumed we were just using this.
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Egg on my face! My bad, I hadn't realized Steve hadn't created a 2.5 changes discussion thread.
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Oder by Promotion Points would be a nice addition for RP reasons in the Commanders screen.
This is the 2.4 change discussion thread, not the suggestions thread.
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Temporary Waypoints
This is a game-changer. ;D