My first post, and a bunch of questions (what else)

[Hawkeye (OP)]

First of all, greetings to everyone and a special thanks to Steve for programming Aurora.

I learned about Aurora a few weeks ago and have been playing around with it since then.
I found a lot of helpful info on this board, but, as you might guess, there still is a lot of stuff I don?t understand or simply don?t know, so here I am, asking the ones in the know

[Kurt]

First of all, greetings to everyone and a special thanks to Steve for programming Aurora.

I learned about Aurora a few weeks ago and have been playing around with it since then.
I found a lot of helpful info on this board, but, as you might guess, there still is a lot of stuff I don?t understand or simply don?t know, so here I am, asking the ones in the know

1) Targeting
a)I am assuming, enemy missiles and fighters are tageted on a salvo/squadron basis, and not individually. Is this corrct?
b)Do I need multiple targeting systems to target multiple salvos/squadrons simultaneously?
If yes
c) Is there a later tech that allows to target multiple targets with a single system (kind of an AEGIS system)?
d) What does ECM actually target? An enemy weapon system, an enemy ship, an enemy targeting system?
And does it help only the ship carrying it or can I design a dedicated Electronic Warfare ship?

A) Missiles are definitely targeted by the salvo, not individually, and I think fighters are the same.

B) Yes

C) Not yet, but it is an interesting suggestion.  Steve?

D)  AFAIK, ECM makes it harder for enemies to hit your ship by giving a negative modifier to their hit chance.  Currently ECM only helps the mounting ship, but I've discussed the possibility of having area affect ECM with Steve.  I can't remember what came of it, though.  

2) Engines
a) What does a hyperdrive actually do? (Aside from adding a whole lot of mass to my regualar engines, that is)
b) Does armoring engines actually make sense. As far as I can see, level-1 armor adds about 25% mass to the engine and given the amount of space those 6+ engines I have to mount to get any speed at all, it seems hardly worth it.
c) Looking at the designs published on this board, pretty much everyone seems to go for (IMO) really fast ships. So far, I have avoided excessive amounts of engines (around 2.000 km/sec for Nuclear Pulse Engines) and put missile launchers on my warships on the idea that fast beamers will have to close a very long way to get into range while I can pound them to scrap. It simply doesn?t seem efficient to build a 5.000t frigate, that can only be armed by 2 12cm lasers, because 70% of its mass is engines (No, I never bought Jellicoes: "Speed is armor" theory). Am I totally off here?

A) Hyper-drive equipped engines boost your ships speed by 10x beyond a star's hyper-limit.  For most purposes hyper-drive equipped drives aren't worth-while, but if you need to get to a distant companion star, they are about the only way to do it in a reasonable amount of time.  

B) I don't tend to armor my engines, as I value speed over armor in most cases.  On some special ships, like planetary assault ships, I've included engine armor though.  

C) You aren't off, but this game can be really scary in some ways, and the whole speed thing can be vicious.  Being slower than an enemy isn't a death sentence,  necessarily, but it makes things harder, especially if the enemy has longer ranged weapons.  Given Aurora's flexible missile design sequence, there is almost no way to guarantee that you have longer ranged missiles, so most people try to boost their speed as much as possible.  

3) Facilities
There is a great list (actually two lists) around here, describing the various facilities one can build on a colony. What I am missing are numbers for the size of the facilities, so I can calculate how many round trips my freighters have to do to ferry a set amount of them to a new colony.
The lists are also not too easy to handle, if you are looking for something specific.

A table listing cargo sizes would be nice, but IIRC, most installations require 25,000 cargo size points, or the equivalent of 5 cargo holds.  The one exception I can think of off of the top of my head is Research Labs, which have to be shipped piecemeal.  

4) Commanders
As with facilities, there is a list around here, listing the various bonuses and what they are doing. There are, however, a couple of abilities missing. Does anyone know what those do?
      Communication
      Intelligence
      Logistics
      Operation
      Trade

Hmmm...the first four are bonuses applicable when that officer is assigned to a staff position within a Task Group.  I'm not sure about trade.  

5) Task Force COs
As I understand it, TF COs give their bonuses to the ships assigned to their TF. But what about their staff? So far, I have gone to great length, to put, for example, a R1 with a survey bonus into the survey staff slot. Does this actually help or is it a waste of time?

A survey bonus will add to any survey ship's survey points, if they are assigned to that group and if they are in the same system as the fleet commander (and his staff).  If there are no survey ships in the Group then I usually don't assign a survey staff officer.  

Kurt

[Erik L]

2) Engines
a) What does a hyperdrive actually do? (Aside from adding a whole lot of mass to my regualar engines, that is)
b) Does armoring engines actually make sense. As far as I can see, level-1 armor adds about 25% mass to the engine and given the amount of space those 6+ engines I have to mount to get any speed at all, it seems hardly worth it.
c) Looking at the designs published on this board, pretty much everyone seems to go for (IMO) really fast ships. So far, I have avoided excessive amounts of engines (around 2.000 km/sec for Nuclear Pulse Engines) and put missile launchers on my warships on the idea that fast beamers will have to close a very long way to get into range while I can pound them to scrap. It simply doesn?t seem efficient to build a 5.000t frigate, that can only be armed by 2 12cm lasers, because 70% of its mass is engines (No, I never bought Jellicoes: "Speed is armor" theory). Am I totally off here?

C) You aren't off, but this game can be really scary in some ways, and the whole speed thing can be vicious.  Being slower than an enemy isn't a death sentence,  necessarily, but it makes things harder, especially if the enemy has longer ranged weapons.  Given Aurora's flexible missile design sequence, there is almost no way to guarantee that you have longer ranged missiles, so most people try to boost their speed as much as possible.  

I want to add here that non-turret weapons are limited by the speed of the ship for their tracking speed.

So if your FC can track at 10,000 km, but your ship can only do 2000 km, then your non-turret weapons will have an effective tracking speed of 2000km. Which is a bad thing when trying to hit fighters and missiles.

[Charlie Beeler]

2) Engines
a) What does a hyperdrive actually do? (Aside from adding a whole lot of mass to my regualar engines, that is)
b) Does armoring engines actually make sense. As far as I can see, level-1 armor adds about 25% mass to the engine and given the amount of space those 6+ engines I have to mount to get any speed at all, it seems hardly worth it.
c) Looking at the designs published on this board, pretty much everyone seems to go for (IMO) really fast ships. So far, I have avoided excessive amounts of engines (around 2.000 km/sec for Nuclear Pulse Engines) and put missile launchers on my warships on the idea that fast beamers will have to close a very long way to get into range while I can pound them to scrap. It simply doesn?t seem efficient to build a 5.000t frigate, that can only be armed by 2 12cm lasers, because 70% of its mass is engines (No, I never bought Jellicoes: "Speed is armor" theory). Am I totally off here?

C) You aren't off, but this game can be really scary in some ways, and the whole speed thing can be vicious.  Being slower than an enemy isn't a death sentence,  necessarily, but it makes things harder, especially if the enemy has longer ranged weapons.  Given Aurora's flexible missile design sequence, there is almost no way to guarantee that you have longer ranged missiles, so most people try to boost their speed as much as possible.  

I want to add here that non-turret weapons are limited by the speed of the ship for their tracking speed.

So if your FC can track at 10,000 km, but your ship can only do 2000 km, then your non-turret weapons will have an effective tracking speed of 2000km. Which is a bad thing when trying to hit fighters and missiles.

Also, never assume that enough of your missiles will actually get through to prevent that beam ship from closing to it's strike range.  It's a balancing act between your magazine capacity and targeting and your opponents passive and active defenses.  Fast firing laser and gauze turrets are capable of tearing up a missile salvo.  If you don't have enough tubes to over saturate the defenses you'll need superior speed to maintain an open range as well as lots of missiles in the magazines.

[Erik L]

I want to add here that non-turret weapons are limited by the speed of the ship for their tracking speed.

So if your FC can track at 10,000 km, but your ship can only do 2000 km, then your non-turret weapons will have an effective tracking speed of 2000km. Which is a bad thing when trying to hit fighters and missiles.

Also, never assume that enough of your missiles will actually get through to prevent that beam ship from closing to it's strike range.  It's a balancing act between your magazine capacity and targeting and your opponents passive and active defenses.  Fast firing laser and gauze turrets are capable of tearing up a missile salvo.  If you don't have enough tubes to over saturate the defenses you'll need superior speed to maintain an open range as well as lots of missiles in the magazines.

And missiles changed a lot I believe in 3.0. Or maybe the last 2.x version. Magazine capacity has been reduced dramatically, but missiles are also a lot more damaging when they hit.

A good idea is to layer your PD also. A squadron with area PD maybe at a 2x increment of known speed of the enemy missiles, a squadron on 1x range, and a couple on Final fire.

[Hawkeye (OP)]

I only hope I got the quoting stuff all right.

d) What does ECM actually target? An enemy weapon system, an enemy ship, an enemy targeting system?
And does it help only the ship carrying it or can I design a dedicated Electronic Warfare ship?

D) AFAIK, ECM makes it harder for enemies to hit your ship by giving a negative modifier to their hit chance. Currently ECM only helps the mounting ship, but

I've discussed the possibility of having area affect ECM with Steve. I can't remember what came of it, though.

So, ECM simply gives the enemy a targeting malus to hit the ship carrying the ECM.

2) Engines
c) Looking at the designs published on this board, pretty much everyone seems to go for (IMO) really fast ships. So far, I have avoided excessive amounts of engines (around 2.000 km/sec for Nuclear Pulse Engines) and put missile launchers on my warships on the idea that fast beamers will have to close a very long way to get into range while I can pound them to scrap. It simply doesn?t seem efficient to build a 5.000t frigate, that can only be armed by 2 12cm lasers, because 70% of its mass is engines (No, I never bought Jellicoes: "Speed is armor" theory). Am I totally off here?

C) You aren't off, but this game can be really scary in some ways, and the whole speed thing can be vicious. Being slower than an enemy isn't a death sentence, necessarily, but it makes things harder, especially if the enemy has longer ranged weapons. Given Aurora's flexible missile design sequence, there is almost no way to guarantee that you have longer ranged missiles, so most people try to boost their speed as much as possible.

Hm, I might have to look over my designs again.

3) Facilities
There is a great list (actually two lists) around here, describing the various facilities one can build on a colony. What I am missing are numbers for the size of the facilities, so I can calculate how many round trips my freighters have to do to ferry a set amount of them to a new colony.
The lists are also not too easy to handle, if you are looking for something specific.

A table listing cargo sizes would be nice, but IIRC, most installations require 25,000 cargo size points, or the equivalent of 5 cargo holds. The one exception I can think of off of the top of my head is Research Labs, which have to be shipped piecemeal.

Yeah, the Research Lab is giving me quite a headache. I have a very hard time to transport those buggers without getting fractional RLs scattered all over the place.
My freighters can carry 60.000 cargo (I do realize, it would probably have been better to stop at 50k) and it appears I can?t order the cargo groups to transport only, say, 0.36 Research Labs.

Yes, this is, of course, all my fault, as I initially ordered my cargo group to transport 5 Research Labs to Mars. I assumed, if those 5 RLs couldn?t be brought there in a single trip, they would go back and forth until the 5 RLs are delivered when it states quite clearly that the amount is only the maximum amount to be carried.

5) Task Force COs
As I understand it, TF COs give their bonuses to the ships assigned to their TF. But what about their staff? So far, I have gone to great length, to put, for example, a R1 with a survey bonus into the survey staff slot. Does this actually help or is it a waste of time?

A survey bonus will add to any survey ship's survey points, if they are assigned to that group and if they are in the same system as the fleet commander (and his staff). If there are no survey ships in the Group then I usually don't assign a survey staff officer.

So all the staff officers are adding their bonus in the particular slot to the task force as well?  
Then what do the com, intel, log and Ops bonuses actually do?

I want to add here that non-turret weapons are limited by the speed of the ship for their tracking speed.

So if your FC can track at 10,000 km, but your ship can only do 2000 km, then your non-turret weapons will have an effective tracking speed of 2000km. Which is a bad thing when trying to hit fighters and missiles.

Argh! There goes my torpedo destroyer design!

Also, never assume that enough of your missiles will actually get through to prevent that beam ship from closing to it's strike range.  It's a balancing act between your magazine capacity and targeting and your opponents passive and active defenses.  Fast firing laser and gauze turrets are capable of tearing up a missile salvo.  If you don't have enough tubes to over saturate the defenses you'll need superior speed to maintain an open range as well as lots of missiles in the magazines.

Yes, I realized after building my first couple of missile destroyers, that the mag capacity is quite limited. I will probably have to pull out the odd launcher to increase mag capacity, which, of course will weaken my salvos, which will force me to keep firing longer which will force me to increase mag capacity even more, which will....

Damn, this is not going to work!

[Erik L]

In tutorial 3 I believe it is... Ship building, I say that ship building is an art as much as a science. I think this holds even more so in 3.0.

[Steve Walmsley]

1) Targeting
c) Is there a later tech that allows to target multiple targets with a single system (kind of an AEGIS system)?
d) What does ECM actually target? An enemy weapon system, an enemy ship, an enemy targeting system?
And does it help only the ship carrying it or can I design a dedicated Electronic Warfare ship?

C) Not yet, but it is an interesting suggestion.  Steve?

That isn't really possible given the way the game works at the moment. However, it might be possible to simulate it by creating a large fire control system that functions as multiple small systems. Essentially, when you add it to the ship, several small systems are actually added instead. That would be a lot easier to implement.

D)  AFAIK, ECM makes it harder for enemies to hit your ship by giving a negative modifier to their hit chance.  Currently ECM only helps the mounting ship, but I've discussed the possibility of having area affect ECM with Steve.  I can't remember what came of it, though.  

I would like to completely revise electronic warfare at some point. At the moment it is a legacy from Starfire where ECM is a simple fire confusion system giving a penalty to attackers. ECCM reduces the ECM penalty. My preference would be a more real world system where ECM can try and jam specific hostile fire controls (including missile seekers) or, as Kurt suggested, as area jamming system. ECCM would instead become part of the design of sensors and fire control systems, making them more expensive but resistant to ECM. As with the rest of Aurora, so many improvements to make, so little time

Hmmm...the first four are bonuses applicable when that officer is assigned to a staff position within a Task Group.  I'm not sure about trade.  

Trade increases the production of trade points so your spaceports will produce more trade convoys.

5) Task Force COs
As I understand it, TF COs give their bonuses to the ships assigned to their TF. But what about their staff? So far, I have gone to great length, to put, for example, a R1 with a survey bonus into the survey staff slot. Does this actually help or is it a waste of time?

The staff are key. Their bonuses are worth more than the task force commander as he only adds a portion of his own bonuses to each area (25% of the bonus I think). So a staff survey officer with a 30% bonus is worth far more in terms of survey support than a TF commander with a 30% bonus. The TF commander's main role is to train the ships under his command, using his crew training rating, so they can operate as a fleet (using the Task Force Training button on the Task Group window). Otherwise, once there are hostile contacts in the system you will find your ships don't respond immediately to firing and movement commands.

Steve

[Erik L]

5) Task Force COs
As I understand it, TF COs give their bonuses to the ships assigned to their TF. But what about their staff? So far, I have gone to great length, to put, for example, a R1 with a survey bonus into the survey staff slot. Does this actually help or is it a waste of time?

The staff are key. Their bonuses are worth more than the task force commander as he only adds a portion of his own bonuses to each area (25% of the bonus I think). So a staff survey officer with a 30% bonus is worth far more in terms of survey support than a TF commander with a 30% bonus. The TF commander's main role is to train the ships under his command, using his crew training rating, so they can operate as a fleet (using the Task Force Training button on the Task Group window). Otherwise, once there are hostile contacts in the system you will find your ships don't respond immediately to firing and movement commands.

Steve

Heh no smeg.

I saw that with the Hathari/Darkmoor. Give an order to fire or move out of range (for the Darkmoor) and the ship would be sitting there for upwards of almost a minute in one case. That ship didn't survive.

[Hawkeye (OP)]

Ok, as I promised, I?m back.    

1) I have been reading through some of the stories in the fiction section and in one or two, mothballing ships not needed at the moment is mentioned.
I have been looking all over the place, but can?t figur out how to put a ship into mothball.

2) I have formed a battlesquadron consisting of 5 DDGs, 2 DEs and a FSC. I?d like to have the DDGs in a line abreast with the scout in the center and slightly behind and the DEs between #2-3 and #4-3 DDG and slightly ahead of the DDG line.
Is there a way to set up this formation and kind of "save it" or do I have to give movement orders to every single ship to get them into formation?

3) What is the difference between Non-Player-Races and Player-Races? I am assuming, there is no AI to play NPRs, so the only difference I can see is that one kind of race is played by the SM, while the other kind is played by, well, the players (if there are any)

Thanks for your help!!



PS:
I have now read through most of the stories in the fiction section. Great stuff people!!!

A real shame, most of the stories end, when a new version of aurora came along.

I can understand the reasoning behind this, but it still is a shame! So much potential! I was realy longing for the next chapter of most stories and was mostely going "Arghhh, noooooo, don?t stop now!" when the story ended in the middle of a war.

[Erik L]

Ok, as I promised, I?m back.    

Thanks for your help!!



PS:
I have now read through most of the stories in the fiction section. Great stuff people!!!

A real shame, most of the stories end, when a new version of aurora came along.

I can understand the reasoning behind this, but it still is a shame! So much potential! I was realy longing for the next chapter of most stories and was mostely going "Arghhh, noooooo, don?t stop now!" when the story ended in the middle of a war.

A lot of times they end because there is no compatibility with the previous version. It'd be really nice if there was a way to import a game into a new version. Hint hint Steve

[Kurt]

Thanks for your help!!

PS:
I have now read through most of the stories in the fiction section. Great stuff people!!!

A real shame, most of the stories end, when a new version of aurora came along.

I can understand the reasoning behind this, but it still is a shame! So much potential! I was realy longing for the next chapter of most stories and was mostely going "Arghhh, noooooo, don?t stop now!" when the story ended in the middle of a war.

A lot of times they end because there is no compatibility with the previous version. It'd be really nice if there was a way to import a game into a new version. Hint hint Steve .

Kurt

[Erik L]

Based on experience with Starfire Assistant, Steve will not be producing any software to take information from an old version of Aurora and put it into a newer version.  This is because he does his work directly on his database, so he has no need of such a program.  

At various times other people have developed "upgrade" programs for Starfire Assistant, and I suppose those programs would be possible for Aurora, however, they always caused problems.  They weren't perfect, in spite of a lot of effort by the persons who developed them, which meant that repeated upgrades tended to destabilize the database.  My Phoenix Campaign was repeatedly upgraded from version 2.5 (IIRC) to version 7.0, and at various times I had to spend quite a bit of time fixing problems in the database, and I had to put up with more than a little disfunction as a result.  I just had to have those new features Steve kept putting into the program, though   .

Kurt

I've thought about writing one myself... but that's a lot of work...

[SteveAlt]

Ok, as I promised, I?m back.    

1) I have been reading through some of the stories in the fiction section and in one or two, mothballing ships not needed at the moment is mentioned.
I have been looking all over the place, but can?t figur out how to put a ship into mothball.

Mothballing is no longer possible in v3.0

2) I have formed a battlesquadron consisting of 5 DDGs, 2 DEs and a FSC. I?d like to have the DDGs in a line abreast with the scout in the center and slightly behind and the DEs between #2-3 and #4-3 DDG and slightly ahead of the DDG line.
Is there a way to set up this formation and kind of "save it" or do I have to give movement orders to every single ship to get them into formation?

You can assign any fleet to protect another fleet, using the Protect Threat Axis section. The Threat can be either the destination of the protected fleet or any selected sensor contact. You can assign different escorts to different threats. As the protected fleet moves relative to the Threat, the escorts will automatically adjust their position. All you need to worry about is moving the protected fleet. The Distance is self-explanatory and the Offset bearing can be used to create a circle of protection. For example you might place two escorts 10 degrees either side of the threat. The escort option can also be used to protect high value units by assigning them as escorts but setting their offset as 180 degrees, so they automatically position themselves on the far side of the main fleet from the threat. You can also assign forward scouts by setting them as escorts with perhaps a 5 million kilometer range.

If you select a ship within a fleet and press the Escort button, that ship is detached as a separate fleet that is already setup as an escort for the existing fleet, with a distance of 60,000 km and a zero offset.

The Save Escorts button will record the parameters set for each escort of the current fleet.

The Recall Escorts button will issue an order to every fleet that is set as an escort for the current fleet, ordering them to join the current fleet.

Deploy Escorts will detach all ships within the current fleet that were saved last time you used the Save Escorts buttons. They will all be set up in their previous fleets and will make their own way to the previously specified escort locations.

Hope that helps! That is a complex area but one that will make a big difference to the ease of controlling large formations. Please ask for further explanations of any of the above if required

Steve

[Hawkeye (OP)]

Ok, here I go again


Prefabricated PDCs:
There definitely is something wrong with those.
Whenever I load the parts into my frighters, I get some error message about "dataset not found" or something along that line. One message for every type of prefab PDC.

There also seem to be vanishing parts while on the tranports.
I have prefabed quite a bunch of small PDCs and carried them out to the settled colonies, but everytime I unload them, there seem to be some parts missing.
For example, I designed and build a small point defense PDC, that is prefabed in 8 parts. I build those 8 parts, load them, carry them to a colony where they are unloaded, but only 6 parts show up. All frighters are empty (checked on the ship - cargo screen) On my HW, there are now 10 of those parts and 10 parts of a larger, 18 parts requiering offensive PDC and I have never canceled production in mid-building

Also, I am unable to assemble a prefab PDC, if that PDC is marked as obsolete. It makes sense to pull all obsolete stuff out of all the build lists, but I would like to be able to assemble the allready made parts.
This is, of course only a small nitpick, as it is easy to un-obsolete the design, add it to the build list and then obsolete it again (I mostely mention it, because it took me quite a while to figur this out)

Oh, and another small one. After I loaded prefab PDCs for the first time, the "unload PDC parts" shows up everytime, for every frighter in the Task Group orders menue

Fighters:
I started building my first fighters yesterday and got an error message everytime, a fighter was finished. Only later on I realized I had to assign a task group to the newly build fighters in the industrial screen. I was looking for something like that on the fighter squadron screen, thinking this would be the logical place. Perhaps there could be a "crosslink" there?

The fighters build where for a computer generated NPC race, that got fighter engine tech and not much else, so I thought I?d build a kind of AeroSpace fighter (like in BattleTech) and forget about spaceships, because the tech for them sucked big time. Can those fighters operate directely from the planet (No Hangar Deck researched, or I would have designed a planetary fighter base) ?

Sector Command:
How does the range work? I have a Level 3 SC (Radius 2) on my Homeworld and several colonies, 2 jumps away, but the sector gouvernor doesn?t show up there. Or is Radius 1 just the own system, Radius 2 one system out and so on? In that case, rephrasing it to Radius 0, 1, and so on would seem to be more logic.

Also, when the 3rd level finished, I expected the radius to become 3. Is the distance it works the square root of level, so I need a level 4 to reach systems 2 jumps away and level 9 for systems 3 jumps away?