Aurora 4x
Astra Imperia => General News => Topic started by: Erik L on November 11, 2015, 02:55:12 PM
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Yap about it here.
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OK, exactly what I wanted, however what about a way of demolishing a decommissioned facility to free up the slots?
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OK, exactly what I wanted, however what about a way of demolishing a decommissioned facility to free up the slots?
Happy? :)
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c'mon, you be getting instant feedback!
something in the multi faction start (thanks!!) you may want to specify the 5% penalty is off the tax income adjusted by pop size, my first reading was -5% of the 7035 rather than the 2638
since I have 10 factions in my game, thanks for the 40% penalty!!!!
hmm, what would be the result when a faction is merged or destroyed? logically the penalty for all survivors would become 5% less, might be worth mentioning.
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c'mon, you be getting instant feedback!
something in the multi faction start (thanks!!) you may want to specify the 5% penalty is off the tax income adjusted by pop size, my first reading was -5% of the 7035 rather than the 2638
since I have 10 factions in my game, thanks for the 40% penalty!!!!
hmm, what would be the result when a faction is merged or destroyed? logically the penalty for all survivors would become 5% less, might be worth mentioning.
You're welcome on that :D
That's why I included the example. But mathematically, it comes out to the same number. :)
RAW states "Each population past the second imposes a -5% penalty to values globally." So it follows in my brain that if your faction count on that planet is reduced, so is the penalty.
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Defence Installations;
there's mention of them having latest generations of Armour, Shields and ECM/ECCM what about sensors, especially important if they're going to be firing missiles or drones?
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Defence Installations;
there's mention of them having latest generations of Armour, Shields and ECM/ECCM what about sensors, especially important if they're going to be firing missiles or drones?
That should include sensors. But not necessarily long range scanners.
I might work up something to customize PDCs.
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I'd actually specifically exclude long range sensors because of the existence of scanning installations.
if you go into depth with PDC's I'd include something on Orbital, or even deep space bases as well, that should be relatively easy though, build a ship without engines like Starfire!
but that would make a difference on ground and orbital slots as well, I think if you start doing rules for customizing PDC's it will grow pretty quickly, for example a PDC with Troop bays = Barracks, a PDC with Long Range Sensors = Scanning Installation
on a very loosely related tangent, why do Intelligence Agencies consume so many slots? like 1 more than a Fleet Command Centre
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on a very loosely related tangent, why do Intelligence Agencies consume so many slots? like 1 more than a Fleet Command Centre
Ummm because.
As for the PDCs, I would put in something that it needs to have weapons to qualify as a PDC. Otherwise it is <insert other facility here>
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Hmm something I've just thought of, primarily because in my setup I'm not going to have anyone with a Shipyard at start of play;
Construction of Missiles and Drones. especially since they and Small Craft are the 2 things in the shipyard table not rated in tons, especially for missiles I could see it being worthwhile for colonies without a shipyard but with a defence facility being able to make missiles. had you considered taking a leaf out of Steve's book and having Ordinance and Small Craft factories?
Actually for early spaceflight something like Starfires being able to very inefficiently build a streamlined ship without Shipyard as well?
(though to be honest Missiles & Drones are the ones I'm most interested in your answer on)
Actually if you moved those three out, you could streamline shipyard build rates a bit
have a fixed construction rate based on quality and size of the yard maybe
like 100 tons per level of Construction Tech, +5 per grade of administrator per turn
then just have *10 for Mothballing, *5 Reactivating, *2 Refitting, *.5 repairing
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I can see the planetary industry building them. I'd need to play with some numbers though.
Quick off the cuff... The Population Build Rate * 5 in tons for ships. BR * 5cp for Mines/Missiles. BR * 2.5cp for Drones.
These are modified by the Industrial Index.
Small craft are sort of the odd man out. They have a flat rate as opposed to the tons/cp of the others. I might say 1 small craft per month.
I'm not sure it is stated anywhere, but Industrial Index should affect the BR for populations as well as the shipyard rates.
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I like that, and those figures seem pretty good, gives a default starting pop of small core, Ships 30 tons, 30cp of missiles and 15cp of drones.
On page 67 you have " Industrial Bonus (+5%/+1-%) Race has a bonus of +5%/+1-% to build rates.
so it does state it, maybe clarify it to be all build rates, for Shipyards and Planetary Industry.
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you may also want to check the relationship between Research Facilities and Universities, the only advantage a University has over 2 Research is 5000 cheaper, for same ground slots (though research has option of orbital) 10 improvement points more, requires a large core over small, not transportable, and 2 research each with an administrator can perform at least one more project than a University.
Incidentally I'd be slightly inclined to reverse the order of them as well, make the University the lower tier one, with the dedicated research facilities the tier 2 facility;
CERN for example is much newer and more focussed on tech breakthroughs than most European universities.
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I like that, and those figures seem pretty good, gives a default starting pop of small core, Ships 30 tons, 30cp of missiles and 15cp of drones.
On page 67 you have " Industrial Bonus (+5%/+1-%) Race has a bonus of +5%/+1-% to build rates.
so it does state it, maybe clarify it to be all build rates, for Shipyards and Planetary Industry.
That's the racial trait. I'm talking about the Improvement tech line. (see your income post) ;)
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you may also want to check the relationship between Research Facilities and Universities, the only advantage a University has over 2 Research is 5000 cheaper, for same ground slots (though research has option of orbital) 10 improvement points more, requires a large core over small, not transportable, and 2 research each with an administrator can perform at least one more project than a University.
Incidentally I'd be slightly inclined to reverse the order of them as well, make the University the lower tier one, with the dedicated research facilities the tier 2 facility;
CERN for example is much newer and more focussed on tech breakthroughs than most European universities.
That does make sense. When I've had more than 4 hours of sleep because of Fallout 4, I'll look into it more :)
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That's the racial trait. I'm talking about the Improvement tech line. (see your income post) ;)
Yeah, it doesn't mention it in either Build Ships/Improvements on page 59 or Manufacturing Tech on page 94. I think it would be best to mention it in both those places. Probably best to mention the trait effect on page 59 as well.
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Is this still being worked on, and if so how's it going?
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Is this still being worked on, and if so how's it going?
It is, and slowly :)
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Thanks for replying so quickly, my friend was a fan of war games so I bought it from Drivethru RPG and I'm going to try to get him to play it with me.
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Any feedback is appreciated :)
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So, going through the PDF with my friend we found a couple missing bookmarks for tables, table 84, 86,87, and 88 are listed not defined in the PDF.
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Yeah. Things changed :)
When I put out the next one, I'll get those if I already haven't
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*whistles innocently*
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Hey Erik, how does Astra Imperia handle AI/ASI created by an empire?
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Hey Erik, how does Astra Imperia handle AI/ASI created by an empire?
Maybe it's the cold meds, but I'm not grokking.
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I was reading the Terran history thread and saw that they had an AI rebellion, I was wondering how that would come to be through the mechanics in Astra Imperia. (An ASI is an artificial superintelligence)
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There is the machine intelligence along with hive mind (depending on what route you want to go).
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Y'now what this game needs...
Beanstalks! (personally I feel that any game would be improved by orbital elevators, but thats just me)
just need to figure out in game effects, probably should be related to economic bonus to the world in question as it drastically eases and makes cheaper moving stuff to and from orbit
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Maybe there could also be megastructures, like a dyson sphere(Giant satellites orbiting the sun made of solar panels)?
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probably would need to be a lot further up the tech tree than ive ever been though
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hmmm I've been thinking, would it be worthwhile to have a cruising speed/combat speed for ships similar to how Starfire did it (and how it is in the real world) so that you ships aren't zooming around at flank speed over interplanetary distances, from memory strategic cruising speed in Starfire was 66% for I, possibly a bit trickier in AI as your possible speed ranges are much more variable, possibly even have a tech in there to increase cruising speed but with a drawback(like extra size perhaps since we don't model fuel) as a balance, and make your default cruise speed say 75% max thrust, with a minimum of 1?
also some stuff I posted in other threads, brought here so all in one place;
Question about the Engine Tech tree, I would expect the higher tiers of this to have pre-req's of some of the Energy tech trees; for example Engine Tech V (Plasma Torch) you can develop these as N-space engines even without beginning on the Plasma Tech tree. Engine Tech VII is the same not requiring knowledge of Fusion Tech.
Admittedly it will make the tech tree a little trickier and will make things like, Fusion Tech pretty much requires Plasma tech as a pre-req if you want to develop the Engines. gameplay wise it's not going to be any advantage to do what I'm talking about, it just seems weird to me that I could theoretically have Anti-Matter Pulse engines, but have never researched Antimatter Tech.
Actually another way of doing it, the names Nuclear Pulse, Plasma Torch etc are really just flavour, so maybe making the engine names more generic, or using different names not tied in so closely with the reactor tech's would be a thing.
how about Triple Mount hardpoints? recently re-watched the live action Space Cruiser Yamoto movie, and triple mount turret lasers FTW!!
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Engines have an innate thrust compensation equal to their thrust rating. Adding Inertial compensators allows them to exceed that. (This is a change from AI 1). So your flank speed would be engine thrust + IC rating. Sort of already in there in a way.
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Question about the Engine Tech tree, I would expect the higher tiers of this to have pre-req's of some of the Energy tech trees; for example Engine Tech V (Plasma Torch) you can develop these as N-space engines even without beginning on the Plasma Tech tree. Engine Tech VII is the same not requiring knowledge of Fusion Tech.
Admittedly it will make the tech tree a little trickier and will make things like, Fusion Tech pretty much requires Plasma tech as a pre-req if you want to develop the Engines. gameplay wise it's not going to be any advantage to do what I'm talking about, it just seems weird to me that I could theoretically have Anti-Matter Pulse engines, but have never researched Antimatter Tech.
Actually another way of doing it, the names Nuclear Pulse, Plasma Torch etc are really just flavour, so maybe making the engine names more generic, or using different names not tied in so closely with the reactor tech's would be a thing.
I can see what you are saying here. Tying it to the power tech to open the necessary engine tech. That will slow down research in those trees though. You'll have to research up to the necessary Physics level, then the power level, then the engine level. Is the added "realism" enough of a benefit for this change?
Or should the engine techs be integrated into the necessary power techs? Probably at level 2.
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I like option 2 there actually, change the engine tech tree to only have thrust efficiency and engine classes, and move the individual engine techs into the power tech trees. Basically in for example the Fission tree have two levels in there one for Torch and one for Pulse. and 3 of the tech trees are already in the Physics tree (Plasma, Ion and Grav are missing I believe, Plasma in Astrophysics and Ion and Grav without trees, though I could see some other things you could add for Ion and Grav trees, like Ion Cannon, and Tractor/repulsors in grav maybe?)
though this is now turning into a lot of work, it feels more logical to me, and I don't think it would cause too much of a restriction in research, but do you think it's worth it to rejig the tech rules to that degree?
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One thing I have always tried to maintain is "your empire, your way". The biggest thing would be to keep the prospective weapons in-line range/damage/power consumption-wise with the rest of them so there is no flavor of the month or golden gun.
And as a side, regarding the triple-mount. It's doable. But then why not quad? Or quint? Or 257? :) Have to draw a line someplace.
I might go with up to quad since you see a lot of quad-mount turrets in movies.
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Rough idea. No numbers yet...
Engine tech 1 - Torch & Basic
Engine tech 2 - Standard
Engine tech 3 - Improved
Engine tech 4 - Enhanced & Pulse
Engine tech 5 - Advanced
Nuclear engines are under Fission 1 (only because you wouldn't have engines otherwise) requires Physics 1
Ion engines
Grav engines
Plasma engines are under Plasma 3, requires Astrophsyics 2/Physics 4
Fusion engines are under Fusion 3, requires Physics 2
Anti-matter engines are under Antimatter 3, requires Physics 3
Looking at that, I can see it is harder to get plasma engines now than it is Fusion/Antimatter. Those might have to be swapped around a bit. Ion could fit under Astrophysics 1 which gives particle weapons. Grav... That's the outlier.
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I like that, though as you considered yourself swap fusion and plasma engines in table 41 and 70, and maybe put Grav drives as Astrophysics 1/Physics 2 which would slot it development wise between Ion and Fusion?
Maybe instead of Dual, Triple, Quad mounts a Multiple Mount, with Power, Tonnage & LP cost +50% and double cost per additional weapon, with each weapon allowing an additional shot.
hmm no thinking that through that's very exploitable. maybe a sliding scale second weapon is +50% third is +75% fourth is +100% etc that makes it not as efficient to keep piling on the weapons, or possibly leaving the 50% just making it cost more per additional barrel, like +100 for second, +150 for third, +200 for fourth
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Engines have an innate thrust compensation equal to their thrust rating. Adding Inertial compensators allows them to exceed that. (This is a change from AI 1). So your flank speed would be engine thrust + IC rating. Sort of already in there in a way.
oh ok, I misread that then, so a ship with thrust 3 and Compensators 3 could actually hit thrust 6?
then that makes it easy to do a cruising/flank speed by doing something like having a burnout chance on the Compensators for long term use or something, ie If you use your compensators for more than 24 hours theres a 5% chance per additional hour of use that they go foom!
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I like that, though as you considered yourself swap fusion and plasma engines in table 41 and 70, and maybe put Grav drives as Astrophysics 1/Physics 2 which would slot it development wise between Ion and Fusion?
Maybe instead of Dual, Triple, Quad mounts a Multiple Mount, with Power, Tonnage & LP cost +50% and double cost per additional weapon, with each weapon allowing an additional shot.
hmm no thinking that through that's very exploitable. maybe a sliding scale second weapon is +50% third is +75% fourth is +100% etc that makes it not as efficient to keep piling on the weapons, or possibly leaving the 50% just making it cost more per additional barrel, like +100 for second, +150 for third, +200 for fourth
I'm thinking of tying Grav drives to Warpspace power. That just leaves ZPT with no associated drive. Most likely the numbers will remain the same, and just the descriptive text will change.
Dual mounts are standard mounts with increased capacitors and emitters to allow an additional shot per turn. Power and tonnage requirements are increased by 50%, and cost is doubled. Dual Mounts increase the Logistic Point Cost by 50%. Dual mounted weapons may target separate targets with each shot.
That is the dual mount text on page 31. I might reword it to Power and tonnage requirements are increased by 25% per additional mount, and cost is increased by 100% per mount. Each additional mount increase the Logistic Point cost by 50%.
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oh ok, I misread that then, so a ship with thrust 3 and Compensators 3 could actually hit thrust 6?
then that makes it easy to do a cruising/flank speed by doing something like having a burnout chance on the Compensators for long term use or something, ie If you use your compensators for more than 24 hours theres a 5% chance per additional hour of use that they go foom!
Relevant rule section Compensation
Ships have a Compensation rating equal to the Thrust of their engines. To exceed this rating, a ship must have Inertial Compensators. The maximum Compensation Rating is equal to 150% of the Thrust of the engines. This value may not exceed the maximum rated thrust for the hull material.
Also check page 16. I had to go digging. I knew it was in there at some point. :)
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ok, so thrust 4 and compensator 2 is ok, and would allow thrust of?
I have to admit I've always struggled with the way thrust and compensators work together, plus I just realised I've been cocking up my designs by paying for the free compensators (of the thrust value of the engines, oops)
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ok, so thrust 4 and compensator 2 is ok, and would allow thrust of?
I have to admit I've always struggled with the way thrust and compensators work together, plus I just realised I've been cocking up my designs by paying for the free compensators (of the thrust value of the engines, oops)
Cruising speed of 4 and max speed of 6. Well, technically 9, but at severe penalties. It is also dependent on the hull materials. They limit your speed too.
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the way I've read it, with thrust 4 & comp 2 your max thrust is 4, but you can travel at speed 6 (safely), still only accelerating and decelerating at 4, and to keep that speed 6, you aren't constantly using the 4 thrust? as you only coast when you have no engines? so if you've built your speed to 6 do you need to use all 4 of your thrust to maintain that? or would you be using 1 every 5 turns to stop the slowing?
If that's correct it may be worth re-wording page 8 to Bearing and Vector and reserving the word Thrust for actual application of the engine to change speed and or bearing
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the way I've read it, with thrust 4 & comp 2 your max thrust is 4, but you can travel at speed 6 (safely), still only accelerating and decelerating at 4, and to keep that speed 6, you aren't constantly using the 4 thrust? as you only coast when you have no engines? so if you've built your speed to 6 do you need to use all 4 of your thrust to maintain that? or would you be using 1 every 5 turns to stop the slowing?
If that's correct it may be worth re-wording page 8 to Bearing and Vector and reserving the word Thrust for actual application of the engine to change speed and or bearing
It used to be that way. You spent your thrust to maintain speed. There was no inertia. Now you spend your thrust as before for speed changes, but once you've reached a speed, you maintain that speed. You just need to spend extra thrust to accelerate/decelerate. Along with facing changes.
So without IC, your normal, non-penalty speed is 4. With IC 2, you have a speed of 6. Assuming your hull materials allow it. So turn 1 you can go from 0 to 4. Turn 2, you can hit 6 and have 2 thrust left over for additional maneuvers. In the 2 turns, you've moved 10 hexes.
Does that clear things up?
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yup
unless you lose your engine then you decelerate 1 per 5 turns, I'd actually be tempted to drop that, let inertia be a pain for engine disabled ships!
I'd definitely change the wording on page eight though and not use the word thrust, as effectively you are using that word for both thrust and vector.
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Yeah. I'll have to do that :)
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I was wondering if it would be possible to expand on the rules of electronic warfare. Every race isn't going to be using the same computers, or even the same OS for their computers. I would think there should be a penalty against races whose computing systems are unknown, since while most computers will function exactly the same it will probably interpret data differently than ours.
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That is a good idea. Though I would expect as relations grow, some of that penalty would be lost.
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It could, Also if you capture an alien vessel you can try and glean information on their computer systems. Having a physical copy to test would probably greatly improve your ability to develop more effective scrapecode(virus, trojans, etc.) or just interdict their ability to target by ECM.
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Hashing signals is one thing. Full out cyber warfare is another :)
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Would Cyberwarfare be possible in Astra Imperia, or just minor ECM and ECCM?
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You would probably need some sort of communications level.
Maybe there needs to be a new ground unit type. Along with some associated rules to use them :)
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I was wondering if it would be possible to expand on the rules of electronic warfare. Every race isn't going to be using the same computers, or even the same OS for their computers. I would think there should be a penalty against races whose computing systems are unknown, since while most computers will function exactly the same it will probably interpret data differently than ours.
Though that's not exactly Electronic Warfare as the term is usually used. EW is usually prevention of Data collection rather than interfering with the data once collected. What you're really talking about is an expansion of SigInt more than EW, though that's still a cool idea.