A Few Questions

[Karlant (OP)]

I've been playing Aurora on and off for a while now, and I've always had some questions that I wasn't able to locate in the forums or the wiki.  However, it's been a bit since my last search for these things, and I'm feeling a little too lazy to do it again, so let me apologize in advance if these topics have been covered.

1.  When missiles explode without impacting something, does the explosion itself do damage?

In example, say I was to construct a 5000 ton missile that's all warhead, put it in space somewhere, move a ship right up next to it, and then blast it with some lasers.  When the thing explodes, would that ship get rocked by the explosion and take some serious damage, or would it be ignored because there was no contact?

2.  Sort of off the previous question, does the radiation from detonated missiles affect those objects which haven't been hit by the missile? Also, do all missiles have radiation, or just ICBMs/enhanced rad warheads? I'm lead to believe that they do, due to the 'enhanced' bit it talks about, but I'm still curious.

3.  Is there a maximum population for colonies, or a point where the population becomes a burden on the economy/resource of the planet? I could probably check this with the SM, but I just realized the question while writing this.

4.  Do shipyards have a maximum size? I remember one game I let one of my shipyards run on continuous expansion up to around 450k tons before it exhausted my supply of neutronium due to the ridiculous costs.  Would I just be able to get that thing to build a 10 million ton ship if I had the resource?

5.  For that NPR that I decide to automatically generate at the start of a game: how far away is it usually placed? I've never encountered an NPR, just star swarm.  Admittedly, I haven't gotten around to getting a game past 150 years of play due to hard drive crashes and database updates, but I still feel I should have encountered at least one of them.

6.  Not really a question about how to play the game, but has anybody ever managed to legitly research all the techs? Those prices get insane.

I just realized I accidentally wiped the text file I had amassed my questions on, so I guess I'll have to post more later as I play and they're raised again. . .  Thanks for any answers.

[Nightstar]

1: No. It helps to remember that the minimum beam weapon range is roughly the diameter of earth. No AoE in Aurora.

2: All missiles deal radiation if they hit something on a planet. Enhanced just deal more.

3: Not so far as I know.

4: Not so far as I know. It's actually fairly plausible to hit 10m tons if you get a good planet.

5: Totally random IIRC.

6: I really doubt it. I think they're just there so you never run out of stuff to research. High techs aren't expected to be used.

[metalax]

I've been playing Aurora on and off for a while now, and I've always had some questions that I wasn't able to locate in the forums or the wiki.  However, it's been a bit since my last search for these things, and I'm feeling a little too lazy to do it again, so let me apologize in advance if these topics have been covered.

1.  When missiles explode without impacting something, does the explosion itself do damage?

In example, say I was to construct a 5000 ton missile that's all warhead, put it in space somewhere, move a ship right up next to it, and then blast it with some lasers.  When the thing explodes, would that ship get rocked by the explosion and take some serious damage, or would it be ignored because there was no contact?

No, missiles only do damage if they hit something.

2.  Sort of off the previous question, does the radiation from detonated missiles affect those objects which haven't been hit by the missile? Also, do all missiles have radiation, or just ICBMs/enhanced rad warheads? I'm lead to believe that they do, due to the 'enhanced' bit it talks about, but I'm still curious.

Radiation effects are added to a colony if missiles are fired at anything on the planet. All missiles cause some radiation/dust to be added to the colony, enhanced ones cause a bigger effect.

3.  Is there a maximum population for colonies, or a point where the population becomes a burden on the economy/resource of the planet? I could probably check this with the SM, but I just realized the question while writing this.

No maximum, however population growth rate declines as population increases and more of the population as a percentage is placed into the service sector. Even the most heavily populated planet that is at colony cost zero will keep 20% in manufacturing sector available to work in your installations.

4.  Do shipyards have a maximum size? I remember one game I let one of my shipyards run on continuous expansion up to around 450k tons before it exhausted my supply of neutronium due to the ridiculous costs.  Would I just be able to get that thing to build a 10 million ton ship if I had the resource?

No maximum size. However really big ship designs can run into various overflow problems with certain values which imposes an eventual practical limit.

5.  For that NPR that I decide to automatically generate at the start of a game: how far away is it usually placed? I've never encountered an NPR, just star swarm.  Admittedly, I haven't gotten around to getting a game past 150 years of play due to hard drive crashes and database updates, but I still feel I should have encountered at least one of them.

Random. Sometimes it can be far away, sometimes it is in the first system you explore.

6.  Not really a question about how to play the game, but has anybody ever managed to legitly research all the techs? Those prices get insane.

It is possible to do by harvesting tech from ruins and npr's and dedicating a large portion of your construction capability to building extra research labs. Focusing on the increased research rate early on also helps immensely. Still don't be surprised to see it take 1000+ years.

[Karlant (OP)]

Awesome, thanks for the quick replies.

It's kind of a shame that missile explosions don't cause damage, though - the idea of building a 5k ton missile that causes damage to enemy ships even if they manage to shoot it down is pretty cool.

Anyways, I have a few more questions that I jotted down in my last playing session. . .

Is there a way to resupply PDCs based upon a planet without using colliers? Since you can't give orders to PDCs, I don't see how you can.

On that note, is it possible to retrofit PDCs?

Does missile radiation kill crew on ships?

Thanks again for any replies.

[Hawkeye]

You resupply PDCs (I assume you mean missiles, as you mention colliers) from the "Individual Units" screen (F6), Ordnance Management tab.
Select "Population" from the drop-down menue in the center and transfer the missiles you need from the planet to the PDC.
Tedious, if you have to re-arm a hundred ICBM bases, but that is the only way I know to do it


You can re-fit PDCs in the Industy tab --> Economy view (F2) --> On the drop-down that now reads Installations, select "Refit PDC".
This being said, however, refitting PDCs is broken. It takes the correct time and it uses the correct amount of minerals, but the PDC doesn´t actually change to the new type.
The work-around is to do the refit for all your PDCs, enter SM mode, unlock the old desing and edit the _old_ design to the _new_ design. To make the edit take effect, you have to select every single PDC you have on the F6 screen (you can use the curser keys to move through the list).


No, radiation does not kill crew

[Paul M]

An alternative for the refit of PDC:

when the refit is done, enter SM mode, "Delete" the old PDC and give yourself a new one of the type it should have been refit to.

Exit SM mode and go to indivual units and change the names to what they should be.

You can decide which is easier for you to do.

[metalax]

Note that using the delete and replace method does cause you to loose any crew training that the PDC has acquired.

[andrea69]

You can re-fit PDCs in the Industy tab --> Economy view (F2) --> On the drop-down that now reads Installations, select "Refit PDC".
This being said, however, refitting PDCs is broken. It takes the correct time and it uses the correct amount of minerals, but the PDC doesn´t actually change to the new type.
The work-around is to do the refit for all your PDCs, enter SM mode, unlock the old desing and edit the _old_ design to the _new_ design. To make the edit take effect, you have to select every single PDC you have on the F6 screen (you can use the curser keys to move through the list).

Good idea, I used to delete the old ones and SM the new ones, but your way feels much better.

[Paul M]

Note that using the delete and replace method does cause you to loose any crew training that the PDC has acquired.

This is true but realistically how effective would crew training on ICBMs be for TN tech systems?  It is the primary drawback to the delete and replace method and iff the bases are intended to engage in combat any time soon it is likely better to use the other method.

[Karlant (OP)]

Those solutions were so simple I feel kind of silly for not noticing them. . .

Well, one more thing that has been the source of much of my angst while playing Aurora recently:

Is there a way to automate crew resting? While this mechanic is realistic, it's extremely frustrating to have to manually move each of your task forces that are doing something back to the planet, canceling their orders, just so they can rest.  Then you have to go and re-do all the orders again. . .

I ended up locating that text file with my questions and was able to answer the rest of them on my own, so this is the last one I'll be bringing up for now.  Thanks again for the help.