Post by: Erik L on March 28, 2009, 03:49:46 PM
Post by: Erik L on March 28, 2009, 04:15:48 PM
With the ship auto-creation routine, keep the ships in the limits of the shipyards, or increase the yard sizes to match the ships.
Post by: SteveAlt on March 28, 2009, 05:15:39 PM
Quote from: "Erik Luken"
Not sure if this is a bug or suggestion.The design routine just creates a range of starting designs. I need to do that for the NPRs because as they upgrade shipyards, I don't want to start adding new designs. They will only build those designs within their shipyard capacity and as capacity increases they will start building the larger ships. Players can either increase their shipyard capacity to build designs they like or only build those designs within the shipyard capacity. The initial designs are really for NPRs but I made them available to players in case they wanted to create quick races.
With the ship auto-creation routine, keep the ships in the limits of the shipyards, or increase the yard sizes to match the ships.
Steve
Post by: Erik L on March 28, 2009, 05:38:11 PM
Post by: Erik L on March 28, 2009, 05:39:30 PM
Post by: SteveAlt on March 28, 2009, 05:52:11 PM
Quote from: "Erik Luken"
Maybe after a conditional order to refuel, the fleet is given orders back to the system it was in prior to the conditional?I considered that but its entirely possible that going somewhere else might be far more efficient, which is why I left it up to the player.
Steve
Post by: Erik L on March 28, 2009, 06:06:41 PM
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
Quote from: "Erik Luken"Maybe after a conditional order to refuel, the fleet is given orders back to the system it was in prior to the conditional?I considered that but its entirely possible that going somewhere else might be far more efficient, which is why I left it up to the player.
Steve
I mentioned it because it happens (to me at least) halfway through a survey.
Post by: Erik L on March 29, 2009, 12:22:35 AM
Post by: Erik L on March 29, 2009, 01:58:53 AM
I just had some civs drop pop on my venus mining colony... with a 38.5 cost multiplier. Of course there's only 20 infrastructure (also placed by the civs). Now the people are mad that their growth rate is -900%
Post by: SteveAlt on March 29, 2009, 07:18:46 AM
Quote from: "Erik Luken"
Maybe an upper limit on habitability on planets for civs?I can imagine
I just had some civs drop pop on my venus mining colony... with a 38.5 cost multiplier. Of course there's only 20 infrastructure (also placed by the civs). Now the people are mad that their growth rate is -900%
At the moment the civilians will drop colonists on any planet that is either 0.0 colony cost or has more infrastructure than population. I guess what I should really check is if the planet has enough infrastructure for the existing population plus the capacity of the civ fleet.
Steve
Post by: sloanjh on March 29, 2009, 10:28:46 AM
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
Quote from: "Erik Luken"Maybe an upper limit on habitability on planets for civs?I can imagine :-)
I just had some civs drop pop on my venus mining colony... with a 38.5 cost multiplier. Of course there's only 20 infrastructure (also placed by the civs). Now the people are mad that their growth rate is -900%
Post by: SteveAlt on March 29, 2009, 10:33:19 AM
Quote from: "sloanjh"
Wimps. Why when I was a kid, our colony had a colonization cost of 5,697! And no infrastructure either!!
Colony! You were lucky to live in a Colony! We used to live in a crater, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of meteorites.
Steve
Post by: sloanjh on March 29, 2009, 10:56:35 AM
At present, I have to wait for an event to appear before I can color it. This wouldn't be so bad, except I keep my events (ctrl-F3) screen in "SM-view" all the time, even though I run in non-SM mode. The color that display in SM-view are the empire, not SM colors, so in order for new colors to be visible, I have to go to the empire view, change the color, turn on SM-mode (so I can get back to SM-view), set the view to SM-view, then turn off SM-mode.
The other possibility would be to have an SM-view color scheme, and have the changes modify that color scheme when in SM-view.
This is low priority - it's been that way for ages, and I have a practised mechanism for working around it.
John
Post by: welchbloke on March 29, 2009, 04:58:45 PM
Quote from: "Erik Luken"
On the research tab, in addition to the Queue button, a "Queue Top". Please :)
Post by: waresky on March 29, 2009, 05:04:52 PM
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
Asimov,heinlein or Pournelle and Paul Anderson love this smeg:)Quote from: "sloanjh"Wimps. Why when I was a kid, our colony had a colonization cost of 5,697! And no infrastructure either!!
Colony! You were lucky to live in a Colony! We used to live in a crater, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of meteorites.
Steve
But an old Asimov's novel on Moon r very dark on my soul..hard,heavy sound for an uncertain future.
"fear for meteors"..ehehhe...damn u r lol
Post by: SteveAlt on March 29, 2009, 05:27:27 PM
Quote from: "welchbloke"
Quote from: "Erik Luken"On the research tab, in addition to the Queue button, a "Queue Top". Please :)Queue Top button added to v4.1
Steve
Post by: welchbloke on March 29, 2009, 05:32:19 PM
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
Quote from: "welchbloke"Cool! Thank you Steve.Quote from: "Erik Luken"On the research tab, in addition to the Queue button, a "Queue Top". Please :)Queue Top button added to v4.1
Steve
Post by: waresky on March 30, 2009, 12:58:37 PM
And am raise the second hand for gave: Set destination and select them from a "possible list" in 4 jump away.Are a greatest in Naval programm help.
When a "Imperium" growth all "help" are incredible welcome.Am think at UR "Commonwhealth Campaign" ive a very hard to manage ur Squadroon,understand where,when,why,who...send a tanker,a transports,take missiles,refueling orders..drive me crazy:)
i will try to lead this "scenario",before begin a one meself.For know ur Missile tactics,selection,design..etc.
Post by: Andrew on March 30, 2009, 05:21:49 PM
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 30, 2009, 06:52:36 PM
Quote from: "Andrew"
Precursors may be too common in about 20 systems surveyed , there are 4 which seem to have precurorsPrecursors can appear at ruin sites with the chance being based on the type of ruin. There is also a 1 in 15 chance that smaller precursor vessels may be found in any system (trapped there by the ancient war).
Steve
Post by: Charlie Beeler on March 31, 2009, 08:20:05 AM
With my background in military aviation a carrier not having the ability to repair damaged sub-systems on assigned fighters is just wrong.
Yes there is a potential of abuse of this basic concept to create fleet repair docks. That's not neccessarily a bad thing.
Post by: waresky on March 31, 2009, 10:36:16 AM
HOPE this arent a REAL in our REAL universe..
Post by: welchbloke on March 31, 2009, 01:52:00 PM
Quote from: "Charlie Beeler"
This is actually something I've run into in lower versions. A need for a tech to allow a mothership to perform repairs to docked parsite ships. (ie carriers repairing/maintaining fighters) functionally, hanger bays should allow this.
With my background in military aviation a carrier not having the ability to repair damaged sub-systems on assigned fighters is just wrong.
Yes there is a potential of abuse of this basic concept to create fleet repair docks. That's not neccessarily a bad thing.
I'd also like to see motherships have the ability to repair damaged sub-systems for parasites. I suppose that this could be another tech line that starts with machines shops (for want of a better term) that could assist in the repair of a certain number of HS. As the tech improved you could either increase the amount of HS repaired per machine shop or the time taken for a repair (or maybe both). If you keep the number of HS per machine shop reasonably low and make the machine shops large enough then players wouldn't find the creation of FRDs viable until well into the game.
Post by: welchbloke on March 31, 2009, 01:55:17 PM
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
Steve, do precursors appear if I use the add ruins button? The reason is that I'm considering a campaign that begins with a race discovering it is the remnants of a greater empire and I had planned to have a liberal scattering of ruins around the starting solar system. Of course if I'm going to create a torrent of precursors I may have to rethink the ideaQuote from: "Andrew"Precursors may be too common in about 20 systems surveyed , there are 4 which seem to have precurorsPrecursors can appear at ruin sites with the chance being based on the type of ruin. There is also a 1 in 15 chance that smaller precursor vessels may be found in any system (trapped there by the ancient war).
Steve
Post by: Andrew on March 31, 2009, 02:25:08 PM
I think there needs to be some checking on if it is necessary to stop every 10 seconds if nothing has changed presumably the precursor ships know what they are doing and it would be better if there was only an interupt when they need to change their minds or when they are noticed by the player . Earlier after the missile engagment ended , 1 day increments where possible while the fleet moved across the system
Calrification , by giving myself some ships with truly implausible sensors I located the precursors and they are about 2 billion km from any of my ships, they where probably closer when I was having 1 day increments succesfully
Post by: waresky on April 01, 2009, 06:09:23 AM
Quote from: "welchbloke"
Quote from: "Charlie Beeler"This is actually something I've run into in lower versions. A need for a tech to allow a mothership to perform repairs to docked parsite ships. (ie carriers repairing/maintaining fighters) functionally, hanger bays should allow this.
With my background in military aviation a carrier not having the ability to repair damaged sub-systems on assigned fighters is just wrong. :D (4000tons maintenance-repair,plus engineers,spare,fuel..engine for drive them..asd asd..) am think an really "maintenance Vessel" r very big ship.
Post by: IanD on April 01, 2009, 09:41:00 AM
Regards
Post by: Charlie Beeler on April 01, 2009, 11:51:05 AM
Quote from: "waresky"
Quote from: "welchbloke"Quote from: "Charlie Beeler"This is actually something I've run into in lower versions. A need for a tech to allow a mothership to perform repairs to docked parsite ships. (ie carriers repairing/maintaining fighters) functionally, hanger bays should allow this.
With my background in military aviation a carrier not having the ability to repair damaged sub-systems on assigned fighters is just wrong. :D (4000tons maintenance-repair,plus engineers,spare,fuel..engine for drive them..asd asd..) am think an really "maintenance Vessel" r very big ship.
Currently there is no means of one ship repairing another. Ships, with engineering modules, can perform self-repair provided there are enough maintenance supplies available. The maintenance module does not provide this function. The only other means of repairing a ship is in a shipyard.
My proposal is effectively to allow hanger bays function as a means of repairing an assigned fighters, possibly any assigned parasite ships, internal systems. maybe even a fighters or gunboats armor but not anything larger. That should remain a shipyard function. If a new tech is developed for the creation of fleet repair docks purhaps it could also repair ship armor.
Post by: sloanjh on April 01, 2009, 09:29:16 PM
Post by: welchbloke on April 03, 2009, 03:04:14 AM
Quote from: "sloanjh"
On the "Manage Shipyards" tab, exclude any class with zero ships in the class from the "refit from" list.I would like to see this as well.
Post by: waresky on April 03, 2009, 02:14:34 PM
In another campaign ive been build an Parassite-Carriers with Maintenance for 2000tons,hangar for 8000tons,so ive put into 4 GravSurvey-2000tons each,and this never lost any maintenance.
So am convicted this design "maintenance" effectively parassite onboard.
hope am understandable:)
Post by: Charlie Beeler on April 03, 2009, 04:38:30 PM
Quote from: "waresky"
Carrier-Maintenance
In another campaign ive been build an Parassite-Carriers with Maintenance for 2000tons,hangar for 8000tons,so ive put into 4 GravSurvey-2000tons each,and this never lost any maintenance.
So am convicted this design "maintenance" effectively parassite onboard.
hope am understandable:)
Maintenance and repair are different things. As I recall there was an extended discussion about this in relation to FAC and carrier design around the end of February.
In a nutshell, maintenance modules installed in ships are limited as to when and where they function. A colony needs to be established on a system body (asteroid, moon, planet, etc) but does not need a population. Said colony will need raw ore available just as maintenance installations do for support of ships in orbit. For the module to perform the support function it must be in orbit of the colony. Another difference is that the module does not have the ability to produce maintenance supplies.
In your above example, while aboard ship the parasite does not accumulate time nor need to use maintenance supplies.
You've got the right idea, but as yet we don't have a means to execute it.
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 04, 2009, 10:37:42 AM
Quote from: "Andrew"
I am having problems with increment adjustment when precursors are near by. My fleet has managed to move several days into the system and it seems the precursors have exhausted all their missiles, they are also beyond detection range of the player ships. Every time , i move things on I get a 10 second increment due to the proximit of the aliens after about 10 minutes of this there is no sign of them and no way to progress at any speed.It's possible that combat is taking place somewhere else and the fact you have precursors nearby is a coincidence. If you still have this problem, please zip up the database and send it to me so I can take a look. The database file is Stevefire.mdb.
I think there needs to be some checking on if it is necessary to stop every 10 seconds if nothing has changed presumably the precursor ships know what they are doing and it would be better if there was only an interupt when they need to change their minds or when they are noticed by the player . Earlier after the missile engagment ended , 1 day increments where possible while the fleet moved across the system
Calrification , by giving myself some ships with truly implausible sensors I located the precursors and they are about 2 billion km from any of my ships, they where probably closer when I was having 1 day increments succesfully
Steve
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 04, 2009, 10:38:12 AM
Quote from: "welchbloke"
Added for v4.1Quote from: "sloanjh"On the "Manage Shipyards" tab, exclude any class with zero ships in the class from the "refit from" list.I would like to see this as well.
Steve
Post by: schroeam on April 08, 2009, 03:12:15 PM
Adam.
Post by: sloanjh on April 08, 2009, 03:22:36 PM
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
Quote from: "Andrew"I am having problems with increment adjustment when precursors are near by. My fleet has managed to move several days into the system and it seems the precursors have exhausted all their missiles, they are also beyond detection range of the player ships. Every time , i move things on I get a 10 second increment due to the proximit of the aliens after about 10 minutes of this there is no sign of them and no way to progress at any speed.It's possible that combat is taking place somewhere else and the fact you have precursors nearby is a coincidence. If you still have this problem, please zip up the database and send it to me so I can take a look. The database file is Stevefire.mdb.
I think there needs to be some checking on if it is necessary to stop every 10 seconds if nothing has changed presumably the precursor ships know what they are doing and it would be better if there was only an interupt when they need to change their minds or when they are noticed by the player . Earlier after the missile engagment ended , 1 day increments where possible while the fleet moved across the system
Calrification , by giving myself some ships with truly implausible sensors I located the precursors and they are about 2 billion km from any of my ships, they where probably closer when I was having 1 day increments succesfully
Steve
I saw something that I think might be related right after the Precursors blew up one of my Keyhole EM surveillance ships. A salvo of 5 missiles came in, only 3 of which were required to kill my ship. For about 10 minutes (I think) of Aurora time thereafter I was stuck on tiny (I think it was 5 second) increments, then everything went back to normal. I assumed that while the missiles were active they were forcing tiny timesteps; I assume that once they ran out of gas everything went back to normal.
John
Post by: SteveAlt on April 10, 2009, 11:49:29 AM
Quote from: "adradjool"
How about an option to give different colonies on the same planet different names, that way they are distinguishable from each other. I like to have more than one colony on Earth if I have one government representing several different countries. This is also useful for a war in which one territory is invaded but physically separated from the rest of the country by an ocean, I.E U.S., U.K., Australia, etc.I can add a pop name field separate to the system body name. My concern is that names are used throughout Aurora and it would be a huge task to make sure that everywhere the system body name is currently used was replaced by the pop name. However, for either v4.1 or v4.2 I plan to add some far more detailed alliance rules, primarily for the campaign which I intend to be the basis of the book I am planning to write. The thrust of these rules would be sharing key information such as research or grav survey data. Essentially the plan is that if one member of an alliance learns something, that knowledge will immediately become available to other members. I hope to even allow a joint survey fleet to survey a system with each ship being aware of which system bodies or survey locations allied ships are surveying. This is so that organizations such as NATO or the European Union can have individual 'empires' like France or Italy, yet function in many ways as a political unit. The new Trade rules already employ an element of this as ships from one empire can carry goods of a second empire to a population of a third empire
This will probably provide you with the type of overall government you need yet still allow distinct populations of different member countries.
Steve
Post by: Starkiller on April 12, 2009, 12:52:01 PM
way, using the existing combat routine. Being able to test designs in simulated combat against an adjustable foe, would weed out bad designs and show
flaws very quickly. Nothing like having, what you think, is the ultimate 'kickass' ship, only to learn that the sensors you selected can see that 25000 ton
behemoth at 8 billion km distance, but doesn't notice the missles coming to kill you, until it's too late.
Eric
Post by: sloanjh on April 12, 2009, 02:33:50 PM
Quote from: "Starkiller"
One thing I would like to see in a future version, not necessarily 4.1, is a combat simulator associated with the ship design section, perhaps, in some
way, using the existing combat routine. Being able to test designs in simulated combat against an adjustable foe, would weed out bad designs and show
flaws very quickly. Nothing like having, what you think, is the ultimate 'kickass' ship, only to learn that the sensors you selected can see that 25000 ton
behemoth at 8 billion km distance, but doesn't notice the missles coming to kill you, until it's too late.
Eric
You can do this now by making a copy of your database (which you should be doing every now and then anyway as a backup) to save the state of your current game, then go into SpaceMaster (SM) mode and use fast OOB creation to make whichever fleets (and/or races) you want. You can change the position of fleets in SM mode by going to the "additional information" tab and changing the current location stuff - in SM mode the "save" button is active (don't forget to hit it). You can also give yourself whatever tech you need by using the "instant" button (also accessible from SM mode). Note that e.g. the F2 and F12 screens need to be opened while in SM mode for these sorts of buttons to appear and/or be activated, so you should probably close all windows and reopen them after going into SM mode.
When you're done with your experiment, simply overwrite the database with your backup copy.
John
Post by: waresky on April 12, 2009, 02:49:42 PM
Quote from: "sloanjh"
nononono...real life r truly boring..if an "game" become same real life am left immediately every games:)))Quote from: "Starkiller"One thing I would like to see in a future version, not necessarily 4.1, is a combat simulator associated with the ship design section, perhaps, in some
way, using the existing combat routine. Being able to test designs in simulated combat against an adjustable foe, would weed out bad designs and show
flaws very quickly. Nothing like having, what you think, is the ultimate 'kickass' ship, only to learn that the sensors you selected can see that 25000 ton
behemoth at 8 billion km distance, but doesn't notice the missles coming to kill you, until it's too late.
Eric
You can do this now by making a copy of your database (which you should be doing every now and then anyway as a backup) to save the state of your current game, then go into SpaceMaster (SM) mode and use fast OOB creation to make whichever fleets (and/or races) you want. You can change the position of fleets in SM mode by going to the "additional information" tab and changing the current location stuff - in SM mode the "save" button is active (don't forget to hit it). You can also give yourself whatever tech you need by using the "instant" button (also accessible from SM mode). Note that e.g. the F2 and F12 screens need to be opened while in SM mode for these sorts of buttons to appear and/or be activated, so you should probably close all windows and reopen them after going into SM mode.
When you're done with your experiment, simply overwrite the database with your backup copy.
John
Raise hand for "Combat Simulator" linked to test design.
IF r possible to programming.
See ya:)
Post by: sloanjh on April 12, 2009, 03:26:11 PM
John
Post by: Starkiller on April 12, 2009, 03:50:22 PM
test a ship design, but an ingame engine would be less problematical. You only need to set up the oposition and it's teck level, perhaps based on intel
on an alien race you've encountered. It can even be faulty intel on the alien capabilities, thus adding uncertainty to the mix. I don't know how hard this
would be, especially if you can 'hijack' the actual combat section of Aurora for this. In fact, you can set up combat against you own designs, which you know,
but if he could set it up to design alien opponents based on possibly faulty, or somewhat accurate, intel, you have a ship that can fight, but may be
surprised by an alien weapon you, and therefore the simulator, didn't know about. And of course if there is no intel, the sim can only design a ship
based on your VERY hypothetcal input. Could be a lot of fun, if it is doable.
And do I EVER agree with the PD and search actives being separate. You don't want to give yourself away, but you DO want to see incoming missles, though
that DOES kinda mean they know you are there already.
Eric
Post by: sloanjh on April 12, 2009, 09:18:05 PM
Quote from: "Starkiller"
The only problem with that method, is the tedious and time consuming setup just to test each design. It's a great workaround to use if one really MUSTThe reason I suggested it was that I've seen this request go by several times in the past, and I don't think I've seen Steve expressing much interest in it, so I thought I'd give you a work-around (that I believe has been suggested in the past). Don't forget that his stated motivation isn't to make a commercial game - it's mostly to be a basis for his writing activities, so his motivation for what he wants to work on doesn't always align with what we want in the game (Pi-Rats!...Pi-Rats! :-)
test a ship design, but an ingame engine would be less problematical.
John
PS - Just kidding about the pirates Steve - I know you've expressed a willingness to get them in if you can figure out a way to do so that makes sense.
Post by: Starkiller on April 12, 2009, 09:23:23 PM
Now I just thought of something. Does Starfire Assistant have a combat sim? While many of the things betweenthe games are different, maybe it's similiar enough to test it in SA before commiting to building it.
Eric
Post by: sloanjh on April 12, 2009, 09:24:32 PM
I want my best officers (highest crew rating) to go on my warships, then on my jump ships, but auto-assign thinks that missile bases are more important, so it assigns high crew ratings to them first.
2) Provide some way to specify a "primary responsibility" for Task Forces for use during auto-assign.
In my home system, I break thinks up into "Logistics Command" (logistics), "Survey Command" (survey), "Home Fleet" (combat), etc. I would like my best logistics staff officer to go to Logistics Command during auto-assign, but it rarely works out that way :-)
John
Post by: SteveAlt on April 13, 2009, 12:39:27 PM
Quote from: "sloanjh"
1) On the DAC/RANK tab of the Class Design (F5) screen, provide some sort of numerical rank that rates the relative importance of that class when it comes time to auto-assign officers.I have added a priority next to the rank. The rank will still take precedence but within a given rank level the classes will be assessed in order of priority. At the moment they are assessed in descending order of combat power and cost. Those will still apply if the priorities are equal. I need to leave the rank in place in order to make best use of the available officers. At the moment in v4.0 the assignment process is as follows:
I want my best officers (highest crew rating) to go on my warships, then on my jump ships, but auto-assign thinks that missile bases are more important, so it assigns high crew ratings to them first.
2) Provide some way to specify a "primary responsibility" for Task Forces for use during auto-assign.
In my home system, I break thinks up into "Logistics Command" (logistics), "Survey Command" (survey), "Home Fleet" (combat), etc. I would like my best logistics staff officer to go to Logistics Command during auto-assign, but it rarely works out that way :-)
Survey Ships of Rank 3 or higher
Any armed ship of rank 3 or higher
Any remaining ships of rank 3 or higher
HQ Divisions
Survey ships of Rank 2
Armed ships of rank 2
Remaining ships of rank 2
Construction Ships
Terraformers
Harvesters
Salvage Ships
Assault Divisions
Armed rank 1 ship classes
Rank 1 divisions
Remaining rank 1 ship classes
Intelligence Officers
Operations Officers
Communication Officers
Logistics Officers
Survey Officers
Fighter Ops Officers
Public Affairs Officers
The difference will now be that within each step, the class priority will be considered ahead of combat strength and cost. I can re-arrange the order of the steps but not on a per race basis so if there was general agreement to make staff officers more important for exmaple, that could be done for v4.1
With the existing complexity, I don't want to get into fleet priorities at this stage though.
Steve
Post by: SteveAlt on April 13, 2009, 12:43:33 PM
Quote from: "Starkiller"
Very true. He does make nice toys. :)
Steve
Post by: SteveAlt on April 13, 2009, 12:45:42 PM
Quote from: "sloanjh"
A combat simulator would be a lot of work and its something I have never needed so its unlikely to get done - at least until I have a sudden burst of enthusiasm to tackle itQuote from: "Starkiller"The only problem with that method, is the tedious and time consuming setup just to test each design. It's a great workaround to use if one really MUSTThe reason I suggested it was that I've seen this request go by several times in the past, and I don't think I've seen Steve expressing much interest in it, so I thought I'd give you a work-around (that I believe has been suggested in the past). Don't forget that his stated motivation isn't to make a commercial game - it's mostly to be a basis for his writing activities, so his motivation for what he wants to work on doesn't always align with what we want in the game (Pi-Rats!...Pi-Rats! :-)
test a ship design, but an ingame engine would be less problematical.
Quote
PS - Just kidding about the pirates Steve - I know you've expressed a willingness to get them in if you can figure out a way to do so that makes sense.The new trade system will provide a great reason to have pirates so I would expect them to appear in v4.2 or later.
Steve
Post by: sloanjh on April 13, 2009, 07:31:46 PM
When I'm running away from precursors, I'd like to know if they're responding to my course changes by making their own course changes. At present, I'm doing this by dropping a series of waypoints and eyeballing it - it would help a lot if the F3 screen simply told me their course in addition to their speed.
John
Post by: SteveAlt on April 14, 2009, 10:19:45 AM
Quote from: "sloanjh"
Display "course" (angular heading) information for contacts.You can now display headings for both fleets and contacts in v4.1
When I'm running away from precursors, I'd like to know if they're responding to my course changes by making their own course changes. At present, I'm doing this by dropping a series of waypoints and eyeballing it - it would help a lot if the F3 screen simply told me their course in addition to their speed.
Steve
Post by: simon on April 14, 2009, 10:57:22 AM
Post by: SteveAlt on April 14, 2009, 12:31:52 PM
Quote from: "simon"
:( Alas we game with notebooks and the new ship design window is cumbersome, you end up having large empty spaces which have minimum functionality while important stuff is forced out into the border areas. For example when designing vessels the number of errors that can prevent design authorization are few and rarely occur all at once so you end up with a large empty design error space while dragging and dropping the window back and forth to see the vitals this also affect the vessel summary when you end up with large spaces and duplicate information when the summary is done. Could it be optional to retain the old window in 4.1v? (It was workable at 1024X768) :DUnfortunately, the old window is no more. The new window is the old window with extra bits. I can't even use an old copy of the window because the underlying code would be out of date.
I agree that the design error space is mostly unused, although it was a matter of aesthetics because I wanted to include a brief summary on the design tab to avoid tabbing back and forth as in v3.2. The depth of the window was the problem so I therefore removed the information that was being repeated in the top section and I moved the design error section to the side to give me more space. I probably should make the Components section longer but I was just matching up the lines :(. I originally kept it down to 1280x1024 because I used to have a second monitor with that resolution. I am now using three monitors on my main PC, each with 1900x1200. It would good to take full advantage of that but I realise that would make it unusuable for many people so I am sticking with the existing resolution. Trying to make it fit to 1024x768 would make all the windows very small for me. I guess another option would be to add the same scrollbars as the Fleet Window but I haven't done so because I have to change the resolution of my monitors to test it and then swap back to code, which gets annoying in a hurry
Steve
Post by: backstab on April 14, 2009, 10:53:59 PM
Post by: Hagar on April 15, 2009, 05:09:22 PM
Post by: Father Tim on April 15, 2009, 08:30:59 PM
Post by: SteveAlt on April 16, 2009, 12:59:30 PM
Quote from: "Hagar"
Since it takes 5 of the current cargo holds to transport a facility or part of the larger facilities that are transported in pieces, there never seems to be a reason to put anything but a multiple of 5 cargo holds on a ship. I just encountered a problem with one of my designs where I had accidently only put on 4 cargo holds and was unable to move facilities (the order was not available for the task group containing the ship). I did not check to see if several versions of this ship in a single task group would be able to move facilities. Does it make sense to increase the size of the current cargo hold by 5 so that each cargo hold could transport one facility?That's a reasonable idea. The reason for the smaller holds is that certain items such as minerals can fit in a one hold and you may want a small, fast cargo ship. However, if no one has any particular objection I could make the hold 5x as large with 5x the capacity. Bear in mind its already 10x as large for v4.1 due to the general size increase so it would 50x larger than at the moment with 5x the capacity
Steve
Post by: schroeam on April 16, 2009, 03:52:31 PM
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
Yes the size of a single hold may increase, but the overall effect on ship design will not be affected. The size of freighters will go up anyway, and people will then use just one hold instead of five. I'm all for the change, smaller faster freighters still can't carry all that many minerals.Quote from: "Hagar"Since it takes 5 of the current cargo holds to transport a facility or part of the larger facilities that are transported in pieces, there never seems to be a reason to put anything but a multiple of 5 cargo holds on a ship. I just encountered a problem with one of my designs where I had accidently only put on 4 cargo holds and was unable to move facilities (the order was not available for the task group containing the ship). I did not check to see if several versions of this ship in a single task group would be able to move facilities. Does it make sense to increase the size of the current cargo hold by 5 so that each cargo hold could transport one facility?That's a reasonable idea. The reason for the smaller holds is that certain items such as minerals can fit in a one hold and you may want a small, fast cargo ship. However, if no one has any particular objection I could make the hold 5x as large with 5x the capacity. Bear in mind its already 10x as large for v4.1 due to the general size increase so it would 50x larger than at the moment with 5x the capacity
Steve
Adam.
Post by: schroeam on April 16, 2009, 03:54:51 PM
Quote from: "backstab"
How about Special Forces Groups that could be used to raid HQ units or destory componants in PDB (Like Missile Magazines, Weapons, Power Plants)
I agree with a commando style unit that will serve some sort of clandestine purpose on the battlefield. Maybe satisfy this with a negative impact on the enemy force morale and readiness.
Adam.
Post by: backstab on April 16, 2009, 04:06:08 PM
Quote from: "adradjool"
Quote from: "backstab"How about Special Forces Groups that could be used to raid HQ units or destory componants in PDB (Like Missile Magazines, Weapons, Power Plants)
I agree with a commando style unit that will serve some sort of clandestine purpose on the battlefield. Maybe satisfy this with a negative impact on the enemy force morale and readiness.
Adam.
You could even throw them away in regular combat , if you are desperate.
Post by: sloanjh on April 16, 2009, 04:47:45 PM
Quote from: "adradjool"
Quote from: "SteveAlt"Yes the size of a single hold may increase, but the overall effect on ship design will not be affected. The size of freighters will go up anyway, and people will then use just one hold instead of five. I'm all for the change, smaller faster freighters still can't carry all that many minerals.Quote from: "Hagar"Since it takes 5 of the current cargo holds to transport a facility or part of the larger facilities that are transported in pieces, there never seems to be a reason to put anything but a multiple of 5 cargo holds on a ship. I just encountered a problem with one of my designs where I had accidently only put on 4 cargo holds and was unable to move facilities (the order was not available for the task group containing the ship). I did not check to see if several versions of this ship in a single task group would be able to move facilities. Does it make sense to increase the size of the current cargo hold by 5 so that each cargo hold could transport one facility?That's a reasonable idea. The reason for the smaller holds is that certain items such as minerals can fit in a one hold and you may want a small, fast cargo ship. However, if no one has any particular objection I could make the hold 5x as large with 5x the capacity. Bear in mind its already 10x as large for v4.1 due to the general size increase so it would 50x larger than at the moment with 5x the capacity
Steve
Adam.
The only three drawbacks I can think of are:
1) Right now cryo holds and cargo holds are the same size. I wouldn't want the same change for cryo holds, since I often put 6 on a ship, rather than 5.
2) Civilian tramp steamers: Given the way the civilian trade system is going, one might want to design a small (cheap!!) 1-hold freighter would transport trade goods; the cheap cost would permit civilian companies to buy them more rapidly.
3) Remote maintenance facilities/"general support ships" - Ships with mobile maintenance modules will probably want to have a small hold for minerals. That way they can make a "forward repair base" colony and drop the minerals on it, rather than having to mine them or bring along a full-fledged freighter. Such a mineral hold could also be put onto a generic support ship, that had fuel tankage, maintenance supplies, magazines, and mineral cargos as part of a fleet train.
Alternate proposal 1:
Have two types of cargo hold system: "classic" and "large (the 5x guy)".
Alternate proposal 2:
Split the "design errors" section of the class design (F5) window into "errors" and "warnings" sections. "Warnings" could have things like "cargo holds not a multiple of 5", "ship's mass is smaller than jump engine maximum size" (which doesn't prevent the ship from jumping, but means you've over-engined it), "too much (or too little) reactor power for weapons mix", ...
John
Post by: Cassaralla on April 16, 2009, 05:19:14 PM
Post by: Beersatron on April 16, 2009, 05:56:54 PM
Quote from: "Cassaralla"
I'd like the small cargo holds to remain as well. I often use a fast single hold freighter for transporting minerals and infrastructure in a hurry.
Quoted for my 'vote'
Post by: Kurt on April 16, 2009, 06:14:27 PM
Quote from: "Beersatron"
Quote from: "Cassaralla"I'd like the small cargo holds to remain as well. I often use a fast single hold freighter for transporting minerals and infrastructure in a hurry.
Quoted for my 'vote'
I'm not sure I've ever created a freighter with less than five holds, however, I do like having the capability to do so.
Kurt
Post by: Paul M on April 17, 2009, 02:13:15 AM
Post by: Andrew on April 17, 2009, 06:33:46 AM
Post by: Paul M on April 20, 2009, 02:40:23 AM
Post by: Hawkeye on April 20, 2009, 03:39:17 AM
If you want to load from a collier-TF, you have to select the collier TF (the source) and tell it to reload the combat TF, which is exactely the other way around. (It took me a while to figure out how to do this
)Would it be possible to make both cases similar, i.e. combat TF selects target and is ordered to reload in both cases?
Post by: Hawkeye on April 24, 2009, 06:51:33 AM
Now, I had my ships there, picking up survivors and marked the wrecks with waypoints on the system map, but because of the wrecks movement, I still can´t find them without some major effort.
Would it be possible to have a ship ordered to put a transponder or something on a wreck, so it would show on the system map, regardless of active scans? I mean, with the system secured, I sure would have done something like this in real life.
Post by: Sotak246 on April 25, 2009, 02:42:30 AM
Mark
Post by: Erik L on April 28, 2009, 06:22:21 PM
Post by: Erik L on April 28, 2009, 09:29:40 PM
Post by: Erik L on April 30, 2009, 07:07:09 PM
Reasoning -
I had a fleet transit a jump point into the middle of an enemy fleet. I think I was using a 5 or 20 minute step. In that time frame, I lost 3 12,000 ton warships to massed railgun fire and had a 4th crippled. Needless to say, I had no opportunity to respond until the end of the time increment. The remaining 55ish ships started pounding the enemy to scrap, but I dislike having lost 4 ships without chance to shoot back.
On the other hand, AMMs are working nicely. The fleet is heading to the colony/homeworld of the aliens, and pursuing a fleet that looks to have been meant to reinforce the fleet on the JP. Out of 300-400 offensive missiles fired at me, not one has yet to hit the turreted PD range. 100% interception at 1-2m km range. Of course, I've fired my offensive magazines dry at this point at the fleet at 22m km. After approximately 12 minutes my birds are about halfway to their fleet. My ships have about a 1200-1500 km/s advantage in speed, and there is a third force (of a new class) heading to rendevous with the fleet I'm pursuing.
The best line in the logs I've seen so far is "98 missiles destroyed, 2 overkill. 100x strength 1 nuclear explosions detected."
Post by: waresky on May 01, 2009, 01:42:58 PM
probably ive miss an related tread,srry if so.
Can wa have an "list" and "WHERE" r our all Army and related planets,Systems list where at?
When u have 2 battle r easy to track..but if am lucky and Terran Empire growth in size..fear when we have dozens of planetary battles..am think we lost many Divisions around into space:)
PS::Ehy in an erased campaign ive found an Alien race 1 jump away from earth..3 years later 96 (NINETYSIX!!!) ships jump inside Sol systems..am rebuild an newly campaign:SSSSSSS
(AHHHHHHHHHHHHH HEEEEEEEEElLP Steeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeve where r OUR ships?:_DDDDDD)
Post by: waresky on May 02, 2009, 11:38:19 AM
i cant found an order to "Unload ordnance" from Collier Squqsroon windows orders..
ive been missed?
if arent pls Steve consider to make in ur list of priority
ty very much!
Post by: sloanjh on May 02, 2009, 12:30:27 PM
For the second time in this campaign, I've been trying to give Shipyard "F" a "retool for class Y" order. The problem is that, on the SY screen, it's VERY easy to have the order be applied to the wrong (first) SY - the selection likes to reset up to there when you do things on the screen. So I actually give the retool command to Shipyard "A", which is 1/2 way through adding an extra slipway. An "are you sure" would give me a chance to catch the mistake.
It would also be nice not to lose progress on extra slipway or capacity due to retooling (or vice versa), but I imagine that's a lot yuckkier to code up.
[EDIT] - It looks like there's already an "are you sure" when you kill a retooling activity (even if no work has gone into it), so I suspect that there's just a hole that "add slipway" (and possibly capacity) aren't covered.
John
Post by: Erik L on May 02, 2009, 04:20:24 PM
Quote from: "waresky"
Subject: UNLOAD ORDNANCE at Designated Colony or Space Station or Missile Base
i cant found an order to "Unload ordnance" from Collier Squqsroon windows orders..
ive been missed?
if arent pls Steve consider to make in ur list of priority
ty very much!
I believe you can do this already. At least to a colony.
Post by: Erik L on May 02, 2009, 04:26:58 PM
Post by: Erik L on May 02, 2009, 04:55:53 PM
Post by: Erik L on May 02, 2009, 07:20:56 PM
Post by: Erik L on May 02, 2009, 07:57:01 PM
Post by: sloanjh on May 02, 2009, 10:17:28 PM
Quote from: "Erik Luken"
Quote from: "waresky"Subject: UNLOAD ORDNANCE at Designated Colony or Space Station or Missile Base
i cant found an order to "Unload ordnance" from Collier Squqsroon windows orders..
ive been missed?
if arent pls Steve consider to make in ur list of priority
ty very much!
I believe you can do this already. At least to a colony.
Just checked, and I don't see it. For a fleet with a single collier, there's a "load from colony" and "reload own fleet from colliers". There's a trick, though - If you set the default load-out for the collier to "nothing", then the "load from colony" command has the effect of unloading the collier at the colony. This is how I move missiles from one world to another - I load the missiles I want to transport by hand at the source world, then do a "load" command at the destination.
John
Post by: sloanjh on May 03, 2009, 03:22:45 PM
Twice now, I've jumped into a system with an NPR, and then a while later seen an NPR fleet coming right at the entry WP from the home world. The first time the WP happened to be moderately close to the home world, so I thought that maybe they just had REALLY good planetary sensors. The second time, however, it was a LONG way away. It appears that what is happening is that all the NPR fleets are generated at the home world, then the NPR realizes that it has WP in the system and wants to picket them, so it gives a fleet a "move to" order. A more "steady-state" situation would be if the fleet were already sitting on the WP - that would make the initial combat transit MUCH more interesting
John
Post by: schroeam on May 04, 2009, 11:16:49 PM
Adam.
Edit:
One more 5 day increment and my scout crossed paths with a three ship squadron that appeared to be performing survey actions. Time to call out the cavalry.
My thought about jump points around distant secondary stars still applies though.
Adam.
Post by: Erik L on May 05, 2009, 01:17:10 AM
Quote from: "adradjool"
So, for the past several years my ships and civilian ships have been transiting through a system directly adjacent to Sol that is a Quadranary system (A is the primary, B orbits A at 1.8 Trillion K, C orbits A inside the first jump point, and D orbits B). I just realized that everytime a ship enters that system the SM gets a message about alien fleets. There are only two planets orbiting A and none around C, but B has many with three between 2.0 and 3.0 for colony cost. I'm not sure, but I think there is either an NPR or Precursor in the B system. Not having built any hyper-capable drives yet, and still building up for the eventual conquest of two separate precursor systems, and having a distance of over 1.8 trillion k to travel, this got me thinking about the physics behind where the jump points are located. I understand they are determined by the primary star, but if the secondary star is far enough away couldn't it have it's own jump points that are as completely random as any other system. This would give hope to those who don't regularly use hyper drives and run across systems too far out of reach but full of potential treasures. Any thoughts?
Adam.
Edit:
One more 5 day increment and my scout crossed paths with a three ship squadron that appeared to be performing survey actions. Time to call out the cavalry.
My thought about jump points around distant secondary stars still applies though.
Adam.
Civilians maybe?
Post by: schroeam on May 05, 2009, 01:43:36 AM
Quote from: "Erik Luken"
Ahh,Quote from: "adradjool"So, for the past several years my ships and civilian ships have been transiting through a system directly adjacent to Sol that is a Quadranary system (A is the primary, B orbits A at 1.8 Trillion K, C orbits A inside the first jump point, and D orbits B). I just realized that everytime a ship enters that system the SM gets a message about alien fleets. There are only two planets orbiting A and none around C, but B has many with three between 2.0 and 3.0 for colony cost. I'm not sure, but I think there is either an NPR or Precursor in the B system. Not having built any hyper-capable drives yet, and still building up for the eventual conquest of two separate precursor systems, and having a distance of over 1.8 trillion k to travel, this got me thinking about the physics behind where the jump points are located. I understand they are determined by the primary star, but if the secondary star is far enough away couldn't it have it's own jump points that are as completely random as any other system. This would give hope to those who don't regularly use hyper drives and run across systems too far out of reach but full of potential treasures. Any thoughts?
Adam.
Edit:
One more 5 day increment and my scout crossed paths with a three ship squadron that appeared to be performing survey actions. Time to call out the cavalry.
My thought about jump points around distant secondary stars still applies though.
Adam.
Civilians maybe?
Thanks for the cheerful thoughts, but no... it seems the precursors from the next system over have migrated. When I was able to I.D. them they came across as alien ships I had already scanned, fifteen years ago. Much to the chagrin of my now dead scout ship crew. The good guys are marshalling for a little vengeance, but space is a big place, and they are just three iddy bitty ships. The reason I say precursors is because that's what race they belong to, or so says Aurora.
Post by: Paul M on May 05, 2009, 03:39:27 AM
Post by: SteveAlt on May 05, 2009, 12:58:04 PM
Quote from: "Paul M"
I'd like to suggest that the act of both repair and refit include automatic maintenance overhaul. Either through turning the clock back automatically to 0 when either action is complete or else having it do the overhaul function at the same time. I find it hard to understand why I need to do either a refit or repair and then an overhaul to get rid of time on their maintenance clocks. Unless of course this is a bug...?This is a common request
. The problem is that a refit or a repair might be a fairly minor task. If you change the EM Sensor for a better one, should that rewind the maintenance clock for the whole ship by potentially ten years?You can do both at the same time though. Start the overhaul and then start the refit/repair.
Steve
Post by: welchbloke on May 05, 2009, 01:31:55 PM
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
I understand your logic and I agree with it. I have found it pretty frustrating though, of course I didn't know you could overhaul and then refit/repair. That makes things much less annoying.Quote from: "Paul M"I'd like to suggest that the act of both repair and refit include automatic maintenance overhaul. Either through turning the clock back automatically to 0 when either action is complete or else having it do the overhaul function at the same time. I find it hard to understand why I need to do either a refit or repair and then an overhaul to get rid of time on their maintenance clocks. Unless of course this is a bug...?This is a common request
You can do both at the same time though. Start the overhaul and then start the refit/repair.
Steve
Post by: sloanjh on May 05, 2009, 10:20:57 PM
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
You can do both at the same time though. Start the overhaul and then start the refit/repair.
Ummm actually, that code seems to be broken (at least for me). From what I've seen, while in an overhaul+refit state (which is correctly displayed by the ship name on the TF window F12), the maintenance clock advances, even if you're in orbit of a planet with sufficient maintenance facilities for it to be frozen. This is also the case in a pure refit state, btw.
For example, if I have a Nelson III in orbit of my home world (i.e. enough maintenance facilities) with zero time on the maintenance clock and put it into a refit that lasts three months, at the end of the three months the clock will be at 0.25 (years). If it has 0.5 years on the clock and I put it into overhaul, then put it into the same refit, it will have 0.75 years on the clock at the end of the refit. I logged this near the beginning of the bugs thread, but wasn't sure at the time whether it was a bug or working as intended.
BTW, do you remember how quickly the clock unwinds in overhaul? I thought it was 4x, but I also have a vague memory of combatants and non-combatants unwinding at different rates.
Thanks,
John
Post by: Paul M on May 06, 2009, 02:29:23 AM
It doesn't make sense that the clock continues to advance while people are working on the ships. Yes the rewind to zero is exploitable and I did think of that. I don't think that overhaul then refit results in the clock rewinding either but I'm far from sure of that, I know you can't send ships into overhaul if members of the task group are refitting. I have several ships under refit and repair currently so I'll have a look in more detail. But I have seen exactly the same things John reports. I put a ship with zero time on the clock into refit and it comes out with time on the clock when it is done.
I keep noticing John that you and I end up running into the same issues! Must be the pre-TNT start
I keep thinking to write up some fiction but it would fairly dull reading as 50 years and basically only building, researching and exploring has been going on. Two pre-curser groups found so far (including one on a nice colony world) and about 25 systems probed with 17 fully surveyed. I've got about 10 years worth in the research queue even...trying to get a number of the racial techs up is really slow going, 15% done on 280 research/annum and that will be a good boost. I'm mainly working on a automatic mine strategy to get resources flowing back to the homeworld...the minearls are out there, I know where they are but I have to work out the best approach to getting them.I'm pretty sure there is a difference, non-military ships seem to overhaul about 1.5 to 2 times faster then my military ships.
Post by: IanD on May 06, 2009, 03:56:56 AM
Quote
This is a common request . The problem is that a refit or a repair might be a fairly minor task. If you change the EM Sensor for a better one, should that rewind the maintenance clock for the whole ship by potentially ten years
While in the terms above it seems unreasonable to rewind the maintenance clock when in for a minor refit, when a vessel goes into dockyard hands for repairs the chance is usually taken to fix all the maintenance problems at the same time. Perhaps there needs to be a threshold at which maintenance kicks in automatically. E.g. if you go into a base to get the latest search sensor then you would not expect maintenance as well. If on the other hand you have significant damage (>25%?) then maintenance should automatically take place at the same time, and be shorter since you are replacing/repairing a significant number of systems with a new one (or to be as good as new) and therefore not need maintenance.
Regards
Post by: sloanjh on May 08, 2009, 10:37:34 AM
Fairly frequently (I've got 2-3 such situations right now), I have one fleet performing passive (or even active) surveillance of an enemy (NPR) fleet for long periods of time. For example, I just had a pair of NPRs come through a WP and park there, right next to my jump ship that was picketing that WP. I ran with short updates (e.g. a few 5 seconds, then 30 seconds, the 5 minutes) for a while to see if they would do anything - looks like they just intend to sit there. I need to go back to long updates (e.g. 1 day) in order to be able to advance the game clock, but am afraid that they'll suddenly decide to move and Aurora won't notify me - they'll just silently disappear as a contact, without even a "contact lost" message or an indication of which way they went. I think I've also noticed instances where a re-established passive contact doesn't throw an event, so I can have ships blunder into a Precursor.
What I'd like is that, whenever an NPR/Precursor which is being tracked as a hostile (or neutral?) contact decides to change its current orders, Aurora drops to a 5-second increment and throws an interrupting "status change" event. That models what would actually happen - the crew of the observing ship would notice the change and behave appropriately. A "status change" should also be thrown when a hostile contact is lost, or re-acquired (even if on passive).
John
Post by: Steve Walmsley on May 08, 2009, 01:04:19 PM
Quote from: "sloanjh"
Throw an event notification and interrupt for any "status change" of a hostile contact.I had already made some changes for v4.1 that will help to do this. Because I am trying to improve performance, the sensor code now deletes any contacts that are not maintained, except for active ship contacts and transponder contacts. The active ship and transponder records are retained for keeping track of the last known location of alien ships for the TacIntel window. This means that any thermal, EM or GPD contacts will be flagged as new when they are re-established and will generate an event, although they won't generate an interrupt if they are associated with a current active or transponder contact for a friendly, allied or civilian ship.
Fairly frequently (I've got 2-3 such situations right now), I have one fleet performing passive (or even active) surveillance of an enemy (NPR) fleet for long periods of time. For example, I just had a pair of NPRs come through a WP and park there, right next to my jump ship that was picketing that WP. I ran with short updates (e.g. a few 5 seconds, then 30 seconds, the 5 minutes) for a while to see if they would do anything - looks like they just intend to sit there. I need to go back to long updates (e.g. 1 day) in order to be able to advance the game clock, but am afraid that they'll suddenly decide to move and Aurora won't notify me - they'll just silently disappear as a contact, without even a "contact lost" message or an indication of which way they went. I think I've also noticed instances where a re-established passive contact doesn't throw an event, so I can have ships blunder into a Precursor.
What I'd like is that, whenever an NPR/Precursor which is being tracked as a hostile (or neutral?) contact decides to change its current orders, Aurora drops to a 5-second increment and throws an interrupting "status change" event. That models what would actually happen - the crew of the observing ship would notice the change and behave appropriately. A "status change" should also be thrown when a hostile contact is lost, or re-acquired (even if on passive).
As a result of this suggestion, I have also added an event at the point where contacts are checked for possible deletion. Any lost thermal or GPD contacts will be logged. I won't log lost shield contacts because you may get spammed in a battle as shields regenerate a little and then get knocked down again. In addition, any active ship or transponder contacts belonging to a race flagged as neutral or hostile will be logged at the point they drop off sensors.
Steve
Post by: sloanjh on May 08, 2009, 02:44:12 PM
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
As a result of this suggestion, I have also added an event at the point where contacts are checked for possible deletion. Any lost thermal or GPD contacts will be logged. I won't log lost shield contacts because you may get spammed in a battle as shields regenerate a little and then get knocked down again. In addition, any active ship or transponder contacts belonging to a race flagged as neutral or hostile will be logged at the point they drop off sensors.
Thanks. My one remaining concern is "how do I get notified of an existing contact changes course to come attack me"?
Another thought: when I lose a contact, is there any way to know its last reported location (when contact was lost)? This would help avoid the "they just vanished" effect when working with a large timestep, i.e. tell me which direction I need to go to regain contact.
John
[EDIT] PS - on the lost shields issue, why not log it only if the shields are undamaged? That will avoid the combat issue. OTOH, I suspect it will be rare to be holding a "shields" contact that isn't also a thermal contact if the target is moving.
Post by: Brian Neumann on May 08, 2009, 05:38:10 PM
Brian
Post by: sloanjh on May 13, 2009, 09:18:13 PM
EDIT - Oh. That would be the "combat settings" tab on the unit (F6) screen
John
Post by: schroeam on May 14, 2009, 02:12:26 PM
How about the ability to change the task force speed through the task force orders list? Give the option of "% full speed" or "specific kps". That way we can set up close approach orders without having to go back in to change the TF speed. It would be especially useful if you want to move to a jump point, change speed to 1 (minimize Thermal Sig) then jump and be as invisible as possible while your passives gather all the data they can. Just a thought I had while trying to do that very thing... funny how that works out
Adam.
Post by: sloanjh on May 14, 2009, 08:04:39 PM
Quote from: "adradjool"
Steve,
How about the ability to change the task force speed through the task force orders list? Give the option of "% full speed" or "specific kps". That way we can set up close approach orders without having to go back in to change the TF speed. It would be especially useful if you want to move to a jump point, change speed to 1 (minimize Thermal Sig) then jump and be as invisible as possible while your passives gather all the data they can. Just a thought I had while trying to do that very thing... funny how that works out
Adam.
I'd like to empatically second this one. This is the sort of thing I do all the time, and it's a bit of a pain to give orders to a waypoint, wait for the message that the ship has arrived, adjust the speed, give new orders, and repeat.
John
Post by: sloanjh on May 20, 2009, 11:11:09 AM
John
Post by: schroeam on May 20, 2009, 08:14:12 PM
How about having the commanders who are part of teams displayed as assigned instead of unassigned?
Adam.
Post by: welchbloke on May 24, 2009, 03:14:49 PM
Quote from: "sloanjh"
You can add me to the list of people asking for this feature.Quote from: "adradjool"Steve,
How about the ability to change the task force speed through the task force orders list? Give the option of "% full speed" or "specific kps". That way we can set up close approach orders without having to go back in to change the TF speed. It would be especially useful if you want to move to a jump point, change speed to 1 (minimize Thermal Sig) then jump and be as invisible as possible while your passives gather all the data they can. Just a thought I had while trying to do that very thing... funny how that works out
Adam.
I'd like to empatically second this one. This is the sort of thing I do all the time, and it's a bit of a pain to give orders to a waypoint, wait for the message that the ship has arrived, adjust the speed, give new orders, and repeat.
John
Post by: sloanjh on May 25, 2009, 04:56:47 PM
The idea here is to cut back on micro-management of (default) missile load-out of ships. The problem comes as new missile designs are introduced to replace obsolete ones - there usually aren't enough of the new time fill the magazines of all ships. For example, in my campaign, I've got Tomahawk-A, Tomahawk-B, and Tomahawk-C. If I could specify that my destroyers loaded "30 Tomahawk" (note the lack of a generation specifier), then all I would need to do is specify "load ordinance" and Aurora could use as many Tomahawk-C as available, followed by Tomahawk-B and Tomahawk-A. It Could also help during the missile design phase, since there's no (or at least I haven't found a ) "copy design" button. If instead there was a "new generation" button on Tomahawk-C, Aurora could use the same masses in Tomahawk-D - all I'd have to do is adjust them if I wanted e.g. to trade off speed for range in the "D" generation.
John
Post by: Sotak246 on May 26, 2009, 06:24:47 AM
Mark
Post by: sloanjh on May 26, 2009, 06:26:06 PM
I've encountered a (higher-tech) race with beam-armed warships with a speed of ~5700 and huge active search radius. My current missile-armed warship design can only do 3333 - it's ~2 generations of engine tech behind. I recently upgraded engine tech, and will soon have tugs built of the same mass as my missile ships and which can do 9000. If I have these new tugs take my missile ships under tow, then they'll have a combined speed of ~6167, which means they'll be able to dance away from the bad guys while plinking them with missiles. This feels like a bit of an exploit - it basically allows tugs to be exchangable engine pods. By only using the engines of one ship, the exploit gets weakened to something that feels more appropriate - the combined speed in that case would be 4500.
I don't feel strongly on this one either way, btw - it's just a thought.
John
Post by: Steve Walmsley on May 27, 2009, 03:45:27 PM
Quote from: "sloanjh"
Introduce missile design "series" and "generations", e.g. "Sparrow-A", "Sparrow-B", "Sparrow-C", etc. such that Aurora knows that these all fulfill the same role in a load-out, and that the Sparrow-C is the most advanced version.An interesting idea. I have already added functionality for v4.1 that will fill magazines with alternative missiles of the same size if the standard loadout is unavailable so I could modify it for this idea. I'll handle this when I start going through the suggestion thread properly.
The idea here is to cut back on micro-management of (default) missile load-out of ships. The problem comes as new missile designs are introduced to replace obsolete ones - there usually aren't enough of the new time fill the magazines of all ships. For example, in my campaign, I've got Tomahawk-A, Tomahawk-B, and Tomahawk-C. If I could specify that my destroyers loaded "30 Tomahawk" (note the lack of a generation specifier), then all I would need to do is specify "load ordinance" and Aurora could use as many Tomahawk-C as available, followed by Tomahawk-B and Tomahawk-A. It Could also help during the missile design phase, since there's no (or at least I haven't found a ) "copy design" button. If instead there was a "new generation" button on Tomahawk-C, Aurora could use the same masses in Tomahawk-D - all I'd have to do is adjust them if I wanted e.g. to trade off speed for range in the "D" generation.
Steve
Post by: welchbloke on May 28, 2009, 12:40:26 PM
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
I like slonjh's idea about multiple generations, it is somethat has a basis in reality. Airforces and navies around the world fill their hardpoints/magazines with multiple generations of a particular missile family.Quote from: "sloanjh"Introduce missile design "series" and "generations", e.g. "Sparrow-A", "Sparrow-B", "Sparrow-C", etc. such that Aurora knows that these all fulfill the same role in a load-out, and that the Sparrow-C is the most advanced version.An interesting idea. I have already added functionality for v4.1 that will fill magazines with alternative missiles of the same size if the standard loadout is unavailable so I could modify it for this idea. I'll handle this when I start going through the suggestion thread properly.
The idea here is to cut back on micro-management of (default) missile load-out of ships. The problem comes as new missile designs are introduced to replace obsolete ones - there usually aren't enough of the new time fill the magazines of all ships. For example, in my campaign, I've got Tomahawk-A, Tomahawk-B, and Tomahawk-C. If I could specify that my destroyers loaded "30 Tomahawk" (note the lack of a generation specifier), then all I would need to do is specify "load ordinance" and Aurora could use as many Tomahawk-C as available, followed by Tomahawk-B and Tomahawk-A. It Could also help during the missile design phase, since there's no (or at least I haven't found a ) "copy design" button. If instead there was a "new generation" button on Tomahawk-C, Aurora could use the same masses in Tomahawk-D - all I'd have to do is adjust them if I wanted e.g. to trade off speed for range in the "D" generation.
Steve
Post by: sloanjh on May 28, 2009, 05:36:04 PM
Quote from: "welchbloke"
I like slonjh's idea about multiple generations, it is somethat has a basis in reality. Airforces and navies around the world fill their hardpoints/magazines with multiple generations of a particular missile family.
That's actually what made me think of it - I remembered reading about the various "blocks" (IIRC) of SM2-MR in the US Navy inventory. Same thing happens with fighters, actually - I think Phantoms were already up to "J" in Vietnam and might have ended up at "M' or "N".
John
Post by: schroeam on May 31, 2009, 05:50:44 PM
Thanks,
Adam.
Post by: Steve Walmsley on June 09, 2009, 09:27:17 PM
Quote from: "adradjool"
Something that just came to mind. How about an order in the TG screen for a ship to picket a jp, planet, moon, whatever, that would automatically change the ship's speed to 1 to reduce it's thermal signature? It seems there is quite a call for pickets and something that common should have a general order for it.I have added this for v4.1. It is just the same as a Move To order, except that speed is changed to 1 km/s on arrival. Don't forget to change the speed if you want to go anywhere else
Steve
Post by: Erik L on June 10, 2009, 02:10:35 AM
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
Quote from: "adradjool"Something that just came to mind. How about an order in the TG screen for a ship to picket a jp, planet, moon, whatever, that would automatically change the ship's speed to 1 to reduce it's thermal signature? It seems there is quite a call for pickets and something that common should have a general order for it.I have added this for v4.1. It is just the same as a Move To order, except that speed is changed to 1 km/s on arrival. Don't forget to change the speed if you want to go anywhere else
Steve
Maybe put a notification in if there's a conditional order that modifies the fleet speed. It'd bite to go quiet and then next time increment shoot back up to max speed
Post by: sloanjh on June 13, 2009, 11:15:48 AM
1) When a "retool for" or "construct/refit to" is given to a SY, Aurora checks (and requires) that the design is locked. The reason for the construct/refit check is that a SY can build a ship it's not tooled for.
2) When a design is unlocked, Aurora gives a warning if the class is "in use", where "not in use" is defined as nothing depending on that class, i.e. no ships of that class (including civies), no refits to or builds of that class in progress, and no SY tooled to produce the class.
3) (I think this one is already planned.) When an attempt is made to delete a class design, a check is made to ensure that it's not in use.
The reason for #1 and #2 is that I often get new tech before I have a chance to put a designed class into production. #1 and #2 allow updating an unused design without the risk of unintentionally changing one that's already in use. The reason for "warning only" is to allow players to clean up some oversight in a class for which e.g. retooling has already started.
It would also be nice to have similar safeguards for tech systems (e.g. weapons, sensors, etc), but I suspect that's a lot harder to get right.
John