Last night, this player with some VB6 experience told JS Bach to meander in the background (to each his own), opened C# Aurora, advanced time for a while and felt a moment of relaxed joy – or soon, when underestimated numbers of spoiler missiles were chasing my grand Home Fleet along a bruised retreat: happy excitement – and respite from other madness. For that, here's a little thank you thread.
In case you want to add your own: Comparisons welcome, but no VB6 experience required, simply post what you like about Aurora 4x in its C# incarnation.
I love about C# Aurora:
1. It's fast. Even on my museum piece of a computer. It only slows down for NPRs doing stuff, but that's fine. Unless I switch them off altogether for an explorer/builder/purist "excel solitaire" universe or, hopefully soon, some undisturbed "multiple personality poker" action, I want them to do stuff.
2. I mean: it's fast. It's only my third play (as opposed to test/just look around and try things out) universe, and the first that may be going anywhere interesting, and I knew already in the setup that I wanted to throttle research speed (just a little, for now). The option to do that is another thing I love. (OK, counting to seven was never one of my strong points.)
3. The new maintenance rules, especially the limit by tonnage. It forces you to plan more deliberately what to build when and where to station it.
4. The new command & control options. The way I usually play Aurora, I try to give some attention and care to my commanders, and now they have more interesting careers.
5. The ground unit system (I can't say very much about ground combat yet.) I wasn't actually too excited about this beforehand. But it adds another whole possible dimension of adding flavour to a universe and (if the combat system works well) strategy.
6. (This may surprise some) The interface. It still has its little quirks and glitches. And I see lots of room for improvement in almost any ui. But there is quite a lot of information and interactions Aurora has to organize in its interface. Essentially, it does that job. Something which I cannot say about some commercial programs that are produced by dozens or hundreds of people who are paid for what they do full-time. (I still have some trouble adapting to that dark blue/white scheme, but there shall hopefully be an option for that eventually. It goes well with Bach before oblivion, though.)
7. What I have always loved about Aurora 4x from the moment I had discovered it exists. It's a canvas to paint my own pictures on with a palette to my taste. C# Aurora made that a lot easier, and with new possibilities.
