What's Your Largest Empire?

[nuclearslurpee]

C'mon, there no way my smeg ass 175 world 'empire' is the best anyone out there has achieved... I felt as though that empire was just beginning to become something interesting...

I suppose it depends how you define "big". 175 worlds is a lot, but with only 3.7b population I don't think most players would have expanded to so many. Stormtrooper on the other hand has something like 16b pop across roughly a dozen systems, with several very large and developed colonies, so that's a different definition of "big".

It also depends on how you want to count autominer bases, OMP/FHP collectives, sneaky DSTS posts on asteroids in frontier systems, and so on. Personally I would count by populated systems but everyone has their own approach.

[Droll]

My latest 1.12 save has around 18bn humans across 20 populated systems and around 5bn aliens across a small subset of those systems.

I have around 200+ 5k ton frigates, 6 60k ton BBs, 4 45k ton BCs, 2 70k ton CVs, 4 30k ton CVLs, around 100 or so DDs, 40 CLs, 2 CGs and 8 CA/CSs. It obviously could be a much bigger fleet but the only part I'm really constantly expanding are the frigate and destroyer patrols to defend the large amount of space my empire takes. However, the larger offensive elements will also be expanding since I take a very modular approach to my empire, with each administrative sector having complete self-sufficiency with mines, shipyards, refineries and both defensive and offensive fleets.

But I think this is the largest population count I've ever reached in any Aurora game.

[Rich.h]

Here is how my current game looks, nearly 250 years in. There a few more smaller mining wolrds not on this list, along with the CMCs. At the moment I am trying to build up naval forces but having some issues with producing MSP, as always with c# it comes down to not enough pops.

[Warer]

C'mon, there no way my smeg ass 175 world 'empire' is the best anyone out there has achieved... I felt as though that empire was just beginning to become something interesting...

I suppose it depends how you define "big". 175 worlds is a lot, but with only 3.7b population I don't think most players would have expanded to so many. Stormtrooper on the other hand has something like 16b pop across roughly a dozen systems, with several very large and developed colonies, so that's a different definition of "big".

It also depends on how you want to count autominer bases, OMP/FHP collectives, sneaky DSTS posts on asteroids in frontier systems, and so on. Personally I would count by populated systems but everyone has their own approach.

Tall vs Wide

[RougeNPS]

Watching Issac Arthur a lot really puts into perspective how small your empires actually are compared to what we can do in 200 years with our current tech.

Really makes me wish for mega structures to be added. But whatever.

Largest empire i ever made was just Sol and like...2.5 billion people.

...you could build your own mega structure?  In the aforementioned game I have a 30x+ asteroid mining complex on Ceres. It used to be bigger but I relocated 3/4 of it to another star system since Ceres is running dry.

I also have a 50x teraforming complex on venus for funsies in this game. Does that count as a megastructure?

Last i checked i cant build a Dyson Swarm. Or any number of things you can do w/a star. I guess im just asking for the ability to put stuff in orbit of stars.

[Droll]

Watching Issac Arthur a lot really puts into perspective how small your empires actually are compared to what we can do in 200 years with our current tech.

Really makes me wish for mega structures to be added. But whatever.

Largest empire i ever made was just Sol and like...2.5 billion people.

...you could build your own mega structure?  In the aforementioned game I have a 30x+ asteroid mining complex on Ceres. It used to be bigger but I relocated 3/4 of it to another star system since Ceres is running dry.

I also have a 50x teraforming complex on venus for funsies in this game. Does that count as a megastructure?

Last i checked i cant build a Dyson Swarm. Or any number of things you can do w/a star. I guess im just asking for the ability to put stuff in orbit of stars.

Yeah it's limited but you can build stuff like planetary rings like I did. I have a 1bn capacity OH around some of the largest worlds that weighs 2.5bn tons. That's pretty large. But yeah I do wish that stars were also considered as system bodies.

[TheTalkingMeowth]

System primaries don't move, so you can just drop your RP thingy on the star and it might as well be in orbit. If you want it to do stuff, SM in an asteroid and park a habitat.

[RougeNPS]

How many habitats can i put around one asteroid? I have never even tried that.

[StarshipCactus]

There is no limit as far as I know.

[clew (OP)]

My latest 1. 12 save has around 18bn humans across 20 populated systems and around 5bn aliens across a small subset of those systems.

I have around 200+ 5k ton frigates, 6 60k ton BBs, 4 45k ton BCs, 2 70k ton CVs, 4 30k ton CVLs, around 100 or so DDs, 40 CLs, 2 CGs and 8 CA/CSs.  It obviously could be a much bigger fleet but the only part I'm really constantly expanding are the frigate and destroyer patrols to defend the large amount of space my empire takes.  However, the larger offensive elements will also be expanding since I take a very modular approach to my empire, with each administrative sector having complete self-sufficiency with mines, shipyards, refineries and both defensive and offensive fleets. 

But I think this is the largest population count I've ever reached in any Aurora game.

How do you manage hundreds of ships like that? The largest I got in a previous build was 8 populated planets with half a dozen rotating task forces and even that was getting unwieldy.

[Droll]

My latest 1. 12 save has around 18bn humans across 20 populated systems and around 5bn aliens across a small subset of those systems.

I have around 200+ 5k ton frigates, 6 60k ton BBs, 4 45k ton BCs, 2 70k ton CVs, 4 30k ton CVLs, around 100 or so DDs, 40 CLs, 2 CGs and 8 CA/CSs.  It obviously could be a much bigger fleet but the only part I'm really constantly expanding are the frigate and destroyer patrols to defend the large amount of space my empire takes.  However, the larger offensive elements will also be expanding since I take a very modular approach to my empire, with each administrative sector having complete self-sufficiency with mines, shipyards, refineries and both defensive and offensive fleets. 

But I think this is the largest population count I've ever reached in any Aurora game.

How do you manage hundreds of ships like that? The largest I got in a previous build was 8 populated planets with half a dozen rotating task forces and even that was getting unwieldy.

The vast majority of fleets have their assigned systems. Each system gets its own frigate patrol group and each sector gets a destroyer squadron. Particularly developed sectors also build battlegroups of various types which are the only fleets that go into enemy territory. Each sector with offensive fleets also has a ground army which it can use to defend or invade, with troop transports to boot. The idea being that each sector is autonomous and like its own nation state.

Because of this, most of those ships don't ever really need to move around even during war time but if I need to defend I have the option of bringing tons of reinforcements from other sectors while also being able to put up a defense anywhere in the empire in a pinch.

Having the modular sector design really helps because I don't need to have super long logistical lines of freighters moving resources as there is usually a mining world with mass drivers nearby to supply the local shipyard and factories so I don't have to keep track of frigates constantly moving across the entire empire.

Edit: I should also mention that formations are your friend. Each battlegroup is split into multiple fleets with a defined primary fleet that all others are sub-fleets to. Using formations I can easily split up various groups meant to do specific combat tasks without needing to worry too much for micro. In particular this is helpful to automatically fan out parasite scouts.

[clew (OP)]

My latest 1.  12 save has around 18bn humans across 20 populated systems and around 5bn aliens across a small subset of those systems. 

I have around 200+ 5k ton frigates, 6 60k ton BBs, 4 45k ton BCs, 2 70k ton CVs, 4 30k ton CVLs, around 100 or so DDs, 40 CLs, 2 CGs and 8 CA/CSs.   It obviously could be a much bigger fleet but the only part I'm really constantly expanding are the frigate and destroyer patrols to defend the large amount of space my empire takes.   However, the larger offensive elements will also be expanding since I take a very modular approach to my empire, with each administrative sector having complete self-sufficiency with mines, shipyards, refineries and both defensive and offensive fleets.   

But I think this is the largest population count I've ever reached in any Aurora game. 

How do you manage hundreds of ships like that? The largest I got in a previous build was 8 populated planets with half a dozen rotating task forces and even that was getting unwieldy.

The vast majority of fleets have their assigned systems.  Each system gets its own frigate patrol group and each sector gets a destroyer squadron.  Particularly developed sectors also build battlegroups of various types which are the only fleets that go into enemy territory.  Each sector with offensive fleets also has a ground army which it can use to defend or invade, with troop transports to boot.  The idea being that each sector is autonomous and like its own nation state.

Because of this, most of those ships don't ever really need to move around even during war time but if I need to defend I have the option of bringing tons of reinforcements from other sectors while also being able to put up a defense anywhere in the empire in a pinch. 

Having the modular sector design really helps because I don't need to have super long logistical lines of freighters moving resources as there is usually a mining world with mass drivers nearby to supply the local shipyard and factories so I don't have to keep track of frigates constantly moving across the entire empire.

Edit: I should also mention that formations are your friend.  Each battlegroup is split into multiple fleets with a defined primary fleet that all others are sub-fleets to.  Using formations I can easily split up various groups meant to do specific combat tasks without needing to worry too much for micro.  In particular this is helpful to automatically fan out parasite scouts.

How did you get each hub set up? Just build gigantic amounts of construction facilities and transport them everywhere?

[Droll]

My latest 1.  12 save has around 18bn humans across 20 populated systems and around 5bn aliens across a small subset of those systems. 

I have around 200+ 5k ton frigates, 6 60k ton BBs, 4 45k ton BCs, 2 70k ton CVs, 4 30k ton CVLs, around 100 or so DDs, 40 CLs, 2 CGs and 8 CA/CSs.   It obviously could be a much bigger fleet but the only part I'm really constantly expanding are the frigate and destroyer patrols to defend the large amount of space my empire takes.   However, the larger offensive elements will also be expanding since I take a very modular approach to my empire, with each administrative sector having complete self-sufficiency with mines, shipyards, refineries and both defensive and offensive fleets.   

But I think this is the largest population count I've ever reached in any Aurora game. 

How do you manage hundreds of ships like that? The largest I got in a previous build was 8 populated planets with half a dozen rotating task forces and even that was getting unwieldy.

The vast majority of fleets have their assigned systems.  Each system gets its own frigate patrol group and each sector gets a destroyer squadron.  Particularly developed sectors also build battlegroups of various types which are the only fleets that go into enemy territory.  Each sector with offensive fleets also has a ground army which it can use to defend or invade, with troop transports to boot.  The idea being that each sector is autonomous and like its own nation state.

Because of this, most of those ships don't ever really need to move around even during war time but if I need to defend I have the option of bringing tons of reinforcements from other sectors while also being able to put up a defense anywhere in the empire in a pinch. 

Having the modular sector design really helps because I don't need to have super long logistical lines of freighters moving resources as there is usually a mining world with mass drivers nearby to supply the local shipyard and factories so I don't have to keep track of frigates constantly moving across the entire empire.

Edit: I should also mention that formations are your friend.  Each battlegroup is split into multiple fleets with a defined primary fleet that all others are sub-fleets to.  Using formations I can easily split up various groups meant to do specific combat tasks without needing to worry too much for micro.  In particular this is helpful to automatically fan out parasite scouts.

How did you get each hub set up? Just build gigantic amounts of construction facilities and transport them everywhere?

The mining infrastructure comes before that, once you have what you need to start building construction facilities, all you need is around 50-100 construction factories and then the sector can just build itself up. This means that your industry more or less develops alongside the sector population.

When time comes to build more varied facilities it can be a problem that a specific mineral is lacking in a sector. These result in instances were inter-sector trade occurs and you set up freighters to move the needed minerals to the sectors that don't have any. This hasn't been a massive headache for me since you can usually expect to find lots of minerals somewhere in a sector.

The system with the admin typically has a large planet that can sustain a large population. This planet becomes the sector capital that also hosts the shipyards. It is the point where most of the sectors resources will be pooled so it simplifies creating inter-sector trade routes a lot since you don't have to worry about every single planet. On the other hand, shipping mines around can get tedious but that honestly isn't any different from not having these autonomous sectors.

[Vivalas]

Sorry I missed an order of magnitude with commercial tonnage.

Commercial tonnage: 1.6M tons

Even with 1.6M tons of shipping that's still pretty small.My current 3 colony star trek themed empire has 900k tons of shipping

[liveware]

Sorry I missed an order of magnitude with commercial tonnage.

Commercial tonnage: 1.6M tons

Even with 1.6M tons of shipping that's still pretty small.My current 3 colony star trek themed empire has 900k tons of shipping

At the time I had a poor understanding of how civilian contracts worked and thus manually controlled my commercial transports. This resulted in a fairly wide empire. The wideness necessitated commercial engined capital ships (carriers especially) which led to some interesting situations which worked out surprisingly well.

In my newer campaign I have similar commercial shipping numbers with only about 10 (populated) colonies which seems to be working much smoother.