Aurora Basics?

[welchbloke (OP)]

I'm thinking of tidying up a document I've created for my own use and providing as an additonal resource for the tutorial document.  I've called it Aurora basics and it has information mined from this site regarding Trans-Newtonian Elements, Basic Sequence of Play, Racial Characterisics, Colony Basics, Ruins, Installations, Crew, Fuel, commander bonuses and maintenance rules.
I was going to post what I have up in this thread looking for assistance in ensuring the info is correct.  Once there's a consesus I'll pass the document to Erik for inclusion as a sticky.

[Beersatron]

Could it be added to the new wiki that was just setup?

[welchbloke (OP)]

This what I have as a description of Trans-Newtonian Elements:

In 2036, a Commonwealth science team examining the possibilities of several outlandish propulsion systems made a startling discovery; the existence of another universe, close to our own, but with radically different physical laws, the most significant difference being that space-time in the other universe had the properties of a fluid rather than a vacuum

Although they could not find a way to move from our own reality into the nearby universe, the theoretical work of the scientists resulted in the discovery of previously unknown elements with strange compositions that seemed to be affected by the presence of this universe. Unfortunately, almost all of the elements were only found within the molten core of the planet and would require significant effort to access. Given the significance of the discovery, sufficient funds were quickly made available and core mining techniques developed. Once in the possession of sufficient quantities of the minerals, the scientists discovered the minerals somehow intruded into the space-time of the alternate dimension and that spacecraft built from these elements would be affected by some of the physical laws of that universe. They theorized that this would allow spacecraft to turn in space like ships in water but it would also quickly slow them to a stop if their engines ceased operating. A secondary effect was that the mass of such a ship would be dramatically reduced allowing much higher speeds from conventional power systems. Finally, it was discovered that sensors and communication systems constructed from some of the new elements could send energy signals through the other universe at a speed much greater than light. Within a solar system, communication and sensors would effectively be real time.

This breakthrough meant that long range system exploration was finally a reality and the Commonwealth began diverting more and more funds to building a space-based capability. Such a discovery could not remain secret for long through and within a year, the other nations of the world learnt of the newly discovered universe and the existence of the minerals, now known as Trans-Newtonian Elements, and began building their own shipyards and factories to support the exploration and exploitation of nearby space.

Two years later, using new gravitational sensors developed from Trans-Newtonian Elements, the team discovered a number of gravitational fluctuations throughout our own space-time with no obvious cause. They theorized that these fluctuations might be caused by the existence of invisible wormholes forming between the gravitational wells of stars and that study of the gravitational fluctuations in a star system would provide the locations of these wormholes. Experimentation with the creation of tiny wormholes provided exactly the readings expected and the scientists informed the Commonwealth government that travel between star systems might be possible if the wormholes could be located and a way found to open them. Work began immediately on ship-based sensors to detect the wormholes and an engine capable of opening a wormhole and taking a ship through it.

The minerals are as follows:

1) Duranium ? Most common ore and used to build factories, mines and ship structures.
2) Neutronium. Very dense material used for shipyards, advanced armors and kinetic weapons such as railguns or orbital bombardment systems.
3) Corbomite. Used for advanced shields, stealth systems and electronic warfare systems.
4) Tritanium. The primary material used in many missile technologies and in the construction of ordnance factories.
5) Boronide. The primary material used in the construction of power systems and capacitors and also for the creation of Terraforming facilities.
6) Sorium. Used for construction of jump drives and jump gates.  Also refined by fuel refineries to produce fuel.
7) Uridium. Used in sensors and fire control systems.
8 ) Corundium. The primary material used in almost all energy weapons.
9) Mercassium. Used for Research Facilities, life support systems and tractor beams.
10) Vendarite. Used in the construction of fighters, fighter factories and fighter bases.
11) Gallicite. Used in the construction of engines, including missile and fighter engines.

[welchbloke (OP)]

This is what I have for the basic sequence of play:

Check Conditional Orders: (if any conditions are met, immediately create the associated order at the top of the order list)

Movement Phase (This section repeats a number of times equal to the number of movement sub-pulses. This may just be one sub-pulse for the whole increment or many sub-pulses. If an event is generated during a sub-pulse, that becomes the last sub-pulse and the time for the increment is reduced accordingly)
- Fleets Move
- Fighter Groups Move
- Fighter Groups Reload (remaining rearm time is reduced)
- Monsters Move (including precursors)
- Missile Salvos move (including intercept, point blank point defence and damage allocation\planetary bombardment)
- Life pod Endurance Check (any lifepods that have exhausted their endurance are removed)
- Sensor Update (all sensors are checked for new contacts)
End of Movement Sub-pulses

Check Primary Special Orders (If a fleet has no move orders, its primary special orders are checked
Check Secondary Special Orders. (If a fleet still has no move orders, its secondary special orders are checked
Ion Storms are updated
Damage Control takes place

Fire Phase
- Weapons are recharged or reloaded
- Shields are recharged
- Point Defence in area mode is assigned targets
- Ships fire weapons
- Planets launch missiles
- Fighters launch missiles
- Combat results from energy weapons are applied
- Monsters (including precursors) fire weapons. Damage is applied as each monster fires
End of Fire Phase

Construction Cycle (This only takes place within an increment if a sufficient number of seconds has passed since the last Construction Cycle)
Worker Availability (The distribution of workers within all populations is checked and any shortages affect efficiency)
Population Growth
Orbital Motion
Comet Motion
System Failure Check (maintenance check for ships)
Mining Production
Harvester Production
Ordnance Production
Fighter Production
Installation Construction
Fuel Production
Terraforming
Shipbuilding
Ground Unit Training
Research
Creation of Officers and Academy Graduates
Crew Grade Increase (due to commander training)
Monster Shipbuilding
Ruins Check (for new tech and exploitation)
Abandoned Installation Check (to see if any have been recovered by cybernetic teams)
Radiation Reduction (including Dust)
Ground Combat
Complete Sensor Check
Communication Check (for attempts to communicate)
Reduce Negotiation Modifiers
Check for loss of Commanders in accidents
Check for Commander medical problems
Check for increases in Commander attributes due to experience
Check for Inactive Research Facilities
Check for Low Fuel
Check for New Ion Storms
Check for Ion Damage to Populations
End of Construction Cycle

Update Time
Update Economics, Events and System Map if loaded.

[welchbloke (OP)]

This is what I have for Racial Characteristics:

Xenophobia: A rating from 1-100 showing the fear of other races or governments

Diplomacy = A rating from 1-100 showing the ability to persuade other races. This is used to offset the Xenophobia of another race

Militancy = A rating from 1-100 showing the likelihood this race will choose military force to achieve its goals.

Expansionism = A rating from 1-100 showing the desire of this race to increase its territory

Determination = A rating from 1-100 showing the determination of this race to proceed with a chosen course of action despite setbacks.

Trade = A rating from 1-100 showing the willingness to trade with other races and to establish/allow trading posts

Translation Skill = -25 to +25 A modifier to communication attempts

Communication Type. The principal method of communication. 1 = verbal, 2 = somatic, 3 = mixed verbal/somatic, 4 = telepathic, 5 = olfactory, 6 = visual display (color), 7 = tones (not words).

I'm not convinced that these are still extant I could definately do with some guidance on this one.

[welchbloke (OP)]

I got this from someone a while ago regarding colony basics; sorry I don't remember who to credit  

For non-zero cost colonies, I'll list my priorities.

1. Infrastructure. I like to have enough for 5-6 million colonists before the first one steps foot on the planet.
2. Automated Mines. I prefer these to manned because new colonies are chronically short on manpower.
3. Construction factories. I usually have them crank out 5-10k worth of infrastructure, then work at doubling their number.
4. Mass drivers. Well, more of an alternate 3. If the colony is to be unmanned strip mining op, then Automated mines and Mass drivers.
5. DSS/Research/Ordnance/Shipyard/Fuel Refineries. These are all somewhat interchangable at this point. DSS are good just to prevent anything from sneaking up. The Ordnance/SY/Refineries all go hand in hand (unless you don't use missile designs, then drop the Ordnance).

Also, once you get over 10 million, you need to start worrying about unrest. So build a PDC, station some troops or ships there to counteract it.

[welchbloke (OP)]

I'm fairly sure this is out of date I know that Archeology will have to be replaced by Xenology for v4.0.

If a terrestrial size planet or moon has a base (not surface) temperature between -130C and +120 C there is a 5% chance it may have 'ruins' of a past civilization. These ruins are discovered as a result of a system body survey and can be one of the following types.

Destroyed Outpost
Ruined Outpost
Ruined Settlement
Ruined Colony
Ruined City
Damaged Installation
Abandoned Installation
Partially Intact City
Deserted Intact City
Deserted Intact Cities

The Tech Chance is the annual chance of a random tech being found by an Archaeological Team working on the site. This random tech will be something that the race could research given its current capabilities but research cost is not a factor so an expensive tech is just as likely as a low cost one. The annual chance is multiplied by the Team Rating/100. So for a Team with a rating of 60, the annual chance of finding a random tech in Extensive Ruins is 15% x 60/100 = 9%. As time usually passes in small fractions of a year, the chance is reduced accordingly.

Example: If 5 days passed, the chance of a Team with a rating of 60 working in Extensive Ruins discovering a tech during those five days is 15% x 60/100 = 9%. x 5/360 (360 days in an Aurora year) = 0.125% (or one eighth of one percent).

The Exploited percentage is the annual chance that all major secrets have very likely been found and it was take a lot of work to uncover anything else. Once ruins are exploited there is only 1/10th of the previous Tech Chance but the chance will get never lower than this. After a race has exploited ruins it can therefore continue searching with a low, but better than nothing, chance of success.

A ruin is in one of three states: Undisturbed, Signs of Activity and Exploited. As soon as any race lands a science team on Undisturbed Ruins, they become ruins with Signs of Activity. This does not affect the Tech Chance but it does allow other races to know someone has been there. It is quickly obvious to a science team if ruins have merely Signs of Activity or if they are Exploited.

When a ruin is discovered a Ruin Race ID is assigned to it, which is a random number from 1-100. A name is also created for the extinct race. Every time a race discovers a technology from an extinct race, they gain a 10% bonus to their Tech Chance in all ruins for that same race for future rolls. This bonus represents growing knowledge of an extinct race and is cumulative.

Example: If a race had discovered four technologies from an extinct race called the Kingdom of Zog and were exploring a Zog Extensive Ruin using an Archaeology Team with a rating of 70, their annual tech chance would be as follows. 15% (base chance for Extensive Ruins) x 0.7 (Team Rating) x 1.4 (40% bonus for four technologies) = 14.7% per annum

A race can have more than one Archaeological Team allocated to a planet with ruins. Each team checks individually so the chance of finding tech increases but the chance of the ruins becoming exploited is rolled once for each team. As the chance of finding tech is modified by the skill of the team but the chance of exploitation isn't, this means that assigning a lot of unskilled teams means the ruins could become quickly exploited without a high chance of finding anything useful.

Example: If you had one team with Skill 90 and three with Skill 30 working on Significant Ruins (Tech Chance 10%, Exploit Chance 25%), the annual chance of finding tech would be 9% for the first team and 3% for each of the other teams. However, the 25% annual chance of the ruins becoming exploited would be rolled once for each team.

When an Archaeological Team finds tech, the skill of that team increases by 1-10 points to reflect an increase in their experience.

[Erik L]

Go ahead and add the information to the wiki. The help link on the sidebar does include formatting tips if you need them. The wiki will also auto-create a TOC for articles with 4 or more headings. And out of date information is okay. Someone will edit the wiki article

[welchbloke (OP)]

This is what I have on crews and crew grade:

All ships require a crew and the size of that crew is based on the total manning requirement for all of the ship’s systems. When a ship is built its initial crew is created from one of two sources, Academy Graduates or conscripts. Each Naval Academy produces 1000 crew and junior officers and 5 command level officers per year. These accumulate in two different pools (one for Command Level Officers and one for Crewman and Junior Officers) on the planet where the Academy is based on and can be viewed on the Personnel tab of the Economics window, The Command Level Officers are used to command ships or govern planets or as part of a team. The crew and junior officers, supplemented by conscripts, provide the crew for all ships. When a new ship is created, the program checks to see if sufficient crew are available in the Crewman and Junior Officers pool. If so, the total crew is deducted from the pool. If there are insufficient crew in the pool, the remainder of the ship?s crew is filled by conscripts. There is an unlimited supply of conscripts.

Crew Grade
Each ship has a number of Grade Points, which indicate the ability of the crew. A ship has a Grade Bonus equal to (square root of Grade Points)-10. This Grade Bonus acts as a modifier to actions such as firing weapons or checking for system failures. A low number of grade points may result in a negative Grade Bonus which will then act as a penalty to such actions.

The starting crew grade for new ships is based on the training level of their race, which usually starts at level one. Each level of racial training level provides 100 grade points to crewmen graduating from Naval Academies. If the racial training level is higher than one, crews receive 100 grade points per level and academies produce crew equal to 1000/training level (instead of the default 1000). This means that if a new crew consists entirely of academy crewmen, the ship will have a number of grade points equal to the racial training level x 100. Conscripts begin with no grade points at all. Therefore if a new crew is entirely conscripts, the ship will have zero grade points. Ships with a mixture of academy crewmen and conscripts will have a number of grade points based on the proportion of academy crew.

For example, assume a ship needs 500 crew, the racial training level is 2 and only 300 academy crewmen are available. Racial training level 2 is equal to 200 grade points. Only 300/500 = 60% of the crew will be academy crew and the remaining 200 will be conscripts. Therefore the ship will start with 60% of the racial training level, or 120 grade points.

A race can change its racial training level on the Race window. If a race changes the training level downwards (from 3 to 2 for example), all the crewman in the pool will now have the lower grade level but the number of crewman in the pool remains the same. However, if the training level is changed upwards (from 3 to 4 for example), half the existing pool is lost to simulate the confusion in the training program but the rest have the new, higher grade. A way to rationalize this may be that those not capable of making the new grade are kicked out of the academy. The racial training level has no effect on the number of Command Level Officers produced by Academies.

As an example, ships with the following number of Grade Points have the associated Grade Bonus
0 -10%
1 - 9%
25 - 5%
81 -1%
100 - No bonus or penalty
200 4.1%
400 10%
900 20%
1600 30%
2500 40%

A ship with 100 grade points is considered an 'average' crew as they have no bonus or penalty.

Ships can increase Grade Points over time through experience or training. Many Command Level Officers have a training bonus. While they are in command of a ship, that bonus is used to gradually increase the grade points of their ship. A ship will gain grade points equal to its commander?s training bonus every year. Experience is gained through combat situations (details to follow).

The Grade Bonus is applied in the following situations (so far):
? Accuracy of beam weapon fire. For example, if a ship has a 60% chance to hit and the crew has 400 grade points (and therefore a 10% bonus), the chance to hit is increased to 66%. If the crew has 900 grade points the chance to hit would be 72%. If a crew has no grade points (and therefore a -10% penalty), the chance to hit would be 54%.
? Rate of Missile Fire. When a missile is fired, the reload time before the next missile can be fired is reduced by the grade bonus. For example, if a missile launcher has a 40 second rate pf fire and the crew has 600 grade points (and a 14% bonus), the rate of fire will be reduced to 40 x 0.86 = 34.4 seconds. As Aurora moves in a minimum of 5 second increments, this bonus is ineffective if it reduces the firing rate by less than 5 seconds.
? System failures (related to overhauls). The chance of failure is reduced by the bonus (or increased for a crew grade penalty).

When a ship is scrapped or mothballed, the crew is removed. If the crew have grade points higher than that of the academy crewmen, they are added to the academy crewmen pool. To simulate the experience of a veteran crew assisting the academy crewmen, the number of crewmen added is equal to the Crew x Grade Points / Grade Points of Academy Crew.

For example, a crew of 600 with 350 grade points is removed from a mothballed ship and added to the Academy Crewmen Pool. This race has a racial training level of 1 so academy crew have 100 grade points. Therefore the number of crewmen added to the pool = (600*350)/100 = 2100.

When a ship is reactivated from mothballs, a new crew is added, using the same rules as a newly constructed ship.

When a ship takes damage, it usually causes crew casualties. When a ship is repaired, those casualties are replaced (by academy crew if available). The grade points of the ship are adjusted to account for the grade of the replacement crew, weighted by the number of replacement compared to the total size of the full crew.

For example, assume a ship with 400 crewmen and grade points of 250 is involved in a battle and 80 of the crew are killed. When the ship is repaired, 80 crew replacements are added to the ship. If there are 80 academy crewmen available with 100 grade points, the grade of the crew changes to (320x250) + 80x100) / 400 or (80,000+800)/400 = 220. Therefore the grade of the crew drops to 220. If no academy crew were available, the grade would drop to 200.

When a ship is refitted, its new crew complement may be higher than before. If so, the additional crew is added in the same way as crew being added to a repaired ship.

[welchbloke (OP)]

Go ahead and add the information to the wiki. The help link on the sidebar does include formatting tips if you need them. The wiki will also auto-create a TOC for articles with 4 or more headings. And out of date information is okay. Someone will edit the wiki article

Sorry, I was in the midst of posting when I read this; I'll repost to the Wiki.