Author Topic: Change for v5.50  (Read 13984 times)

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Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Change for v5.50
« on: March 20, 2011, 07:54:21 AM »
I am going to keep all changes for v5.50 in this thread so it will be easier for players to figure out what will be in the new version.

Change Log
-----------

1) Improved Est Time Calculation for Maintenance (see below) and change to class summary
2) New Glossary of Terms tab for the Class Window, to explain the various abbreviations in the class summary
3) New 'Wreck Detected' event, which will notify players when a new wreck appears in a system where they have planetary sensors or a ship
4) Removed non-hostile targets from default target list on F8 window and added option to include non-hostile.
5) Added current target to end of fire control name in the fire control section of F8 window
6) Same contact remains selected in F8 target list if you change fire control or ship selection.
7) F8 Contact list is sorted alphabetically
8) On the F8 window you can choose to highlight contacts that are currently targeted by either the current task group or the same empire. The targeted contacts are shown with a preceding (T)
9) You can now transport Ground Force Training Facilities in cargo holds. They require the same space as a research lab
10) Clicking on a wreck on the system map will centre the map on the wreck
11) All ground units need to be researched before they can be built
12) The temperature range research projects for creating new species offer a much greater temperature range than before
13) Turret design has been modified - see below
14) The Civilian Colonisation status for pops over 25m can now be set to Destination, Source or Stable. Stable means neither a source nor a destination.
15) Civilian colony ships will now take account of other colony ships when deciding on their destination - see below
16) Jump Drives now suffer from transit effects and cannot jump again until transit effects wear off
17) Manual missile launches at waypoints cannot take until transit effects wear off
18) Explosion contacts will state if they are ground burst
19) You can conduct alien autopsies on species you recover from life pods to learn their environmental tolerances.
20) Added Black Hole systems - see below
21) Population list for F2 window now shown as tree view with option to display by system or by function/system (see below)

Major Bug Fixes
---------

Fixed the bug where completing a research project by disassembling tech might delete a population.
Fixed the bug where your freighters entering populated systems cause an alien race to attack even when a trade treaty is in place
Fixed bug where parasites still on board their mothership would attempt to ram
Fixed bug that prevented lagrange points being used in cycled orders

Steve
« Last Edit: July 26, 2011, 04:01:12 PM by Steve Walmsley »
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Change for v5.50
« Reply #1 on: March 23, 2011, 07:12:18 AM »
Improved Est Time for Maintenance

The existing Est Time field on the Class Summary provides a more useful guide to the likely time before maintenance supplies run out than the base failure rate. However, the value in this field is calculated based on the most expensive component failing, which will not always happen. If the component is expensive but small this will be even more of a distortion as the selection of a system for failure uses the combat DAC. So for v5.50 I have added a much more detailed calculation for the Est Time field and also renamed it the Maint Life field.

In v5.50 Aurora looks at the chance of each individual system failing within a given year and creates an aggregate annual failure cost, based on the cost of each component multiplied by the percentage chance of it being selected for maintenance failure. This will lead to higher but more accurate Maint Life figures. This also allows for more detail in the maintenance line of the class summary. Shown below are the new v5.50 version and the older v5.42 version of the class summary. AFR is just an abbreviation of annual failure rate and MSP is an abbreviated way to show Maint Capacity. 1YR shows the estimated cost of maintenance failures for one year of continual operations after an overhaul. 5YR shows the estimated cost of maintenance failures for five years of continual operations after an overhaul. This is 15x greater than for 1 year because of the increasing chance of failure with each year that passes after an overhaul. Based on player suggestion I have also changed the order the information is presented to emphasise Maint Life over AFR.

Although this looks a little more complex due to the extra information, it should make understanding the maintenance requirements of a design far easier and more accurately reflect the potentially significantly different failures of designs that may have a similar overall size and cost. It will also give players an idea of how many MSP they are likely to expend and they can therefore plan MSP production accordingly.

Eridani class Missile Cruiser    15,000 tons     1016 Crew     2718 BP      TCS 300  TH 2100  EM 0
7000 km/s     Armour 7-54     Shields 0-0     Sensors 16/36/0/0     Damage Control Rating 8     PPV 114
Maint Life 4.82 Years     MSP 906    AFR 225%    IFR 3.1%    1YR 64    5YR 962    Max Repair 180 MSP

Eridani class Missile Cruiser   15,000 tons     1016 Crew     2718 BP      TCS 300  TH 2100  EM 0
7000 km/s     Armour 7-54     Shields 0-0     Sensors 16/36/0/0     Damage Control Rating 8     PPV 114
Annual Failure Rate: 225%    IFR: 3.1%    Maint Capacity 906 MSP    Max Repair 180 MSP    Est Time: 1.62 Years

Steve
« Last Edit: March 29, 2011, 08:56:37 AM by Steve Walmsley »
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Change for v5.50
« Reply #2 on: May 29, 2011, 01:24:05 PM »
Ground Unit Research

All ground units need to be researched in v5.50 before they can be built.

With TN tech you can research Mobile Infantry, Replacement, Engineer and Garrison.
Assault Infantry requires Mobile Infantry
Marine and Heavy Assault battalions requires Assault Infantry.
Marine Company requires Marine Battalion
Brigade HQ requires Mobile Infantry
Division HQ requires Brigade HQ

Steve
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Change for v5.50
« Reply #3 on: May 29, 2011, 01:28:20 PM »
Changes to "Genome Sequence: Base Temperature" tech line

5,000RP: Base Temperature +10C
10,000 RP Base Temperature +20C
20,000 RP: Base Temperature +30C
40,000 RP: Base Temperature +40C
80,000 RP: Base Temperature +50C
et cetera

This should make this range of tech more worthwhile in the future

Steve
« Last Edit: June 05, 2011, 02:38:12 PM by Steve Walmsley »
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Change for v5.50
« Reply #4 on: June 05, 2011, 02:35:15 PM »
Turret Design

Turrets can now have fractional sizes. However, this means that with the current rules there is no longer any advantage to having twin, triple or quad turrets, as they are just exact multiples of the single turret in terms of size, crew, etc.. Therefore I have also made the following changes:

Large turrets receive a discount in terms of the size of the turret gear required. The discount is 5% for twin, 7.5% for triple and 10% for quad. So for a single turret that required 1.5 HS of gear, a twin turret would require 2.85 HS and a quad would require 5.4 HS. The total crew for the turret receives the same discount.

Additional armour for the turret is based on its total volume, using the current armour technology and exactly the same formula as for a ship the same size as the turret. As with ships, larger turrets will require less material per weapon to provide a given level of armour. Armour increases the HTK of the turret by (Armour Level * Number of Weapons). So adding 2 armour to a quad turret would increase the HTK by 8.

An example:

The Eridani have a 20cm Laser which is size 6. Their fire control tracking speed and turret tracking speed are both 6250 km/s and they have laminate composite armour. A single, unarmoured turret with a tracking speed of 25,000 km/s will appear as below. The new SPW parameter indicates the total size per weapon, which for a single turret is equal to the turret size.

Single Turret
Damage Output 10x1      Rate of Fire: 10 seconds     Range Modifier: 4
Max Range 400,000 km    Turret Size: 8.4    SPW: 8.4    Turret HTK: 3
Power Requirement: 10    Power Recharge per 5 Secs: 5
Cost: 75    Crew: 60

The twin unarmoured turret and the quad unarmoured turret, also with a 25,000 km/s tracking speed, are shown below. As you can see, the SPW figure is slightly lower for the larger turrets.

Twin Turret
Damage Output 10x2      Rate of Fire: 10 seconds     Range Modifier: 4
Max Range 400,000 km    Turret Size: 16.56    SPW: 8.28    Turret HTK: 6
Power Requirement: 20    Power Recharge per 5 Secs: 10
Cost: 149    Crew: 114

Quad Turret
Damage Output 10x4      Rate of Fire: 10 seconds     Range Modifier: 4
Max Range 400,000 km    Turret Size: 32.64    SPW: 8.16    Turret HTK: 12
Power Requirement: 40    Power Recharge per 5 Secs: 20
Cost: 295    Crew: 216

Now lets add armour thickness 2. As you can see, this makes the turrets harder to destroy and the difference in SPW is much more pronounced due to the efficiency savings when armouring larger turrets. These changes should make large armoured turrets a serious option for ship designers.

Single Armoured Turret
Damage Output 10x1      Rate of Fire: 10 seconds     Range Modifier: 4
Max Range 400,000 km    Turret Size: 11.73    SPW: 11.73    Turret HTK: 5
Power Requirement: 10    Power Recharge per 5 Secs: 5
Cost: 115    Crew: 60

Twin  Armoured Turret
Damage Output 10x2      Rate of Fire: 10 seconds     Range Modifier: 4
Max Range 400,000 km    Turret Size: 21.8    SPW: 10.9    Turret HTK: 10
Power Requirement: 20    Power Recharge per 5 Secs: 10
Cost: 212    Crew: 114

Quad Armoured Turret
Damage Output 10x4      Rate of Fire: 10 seconds     Range Modifier: 4
Max Range 400,000 km    Turret Size: 40.87    SPW: 10.22    Turret HTK: 20
Power Requirement: 40    Power Recharge per 5 Secs: 20
Cost: 394    Crew: 216

Steve
« Last Edit: June 05, 2011, 02:39:33 PM by Steve Walmsley »
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Change for v5.50
« Reply #5 on: June 13, 2011, 01:09:23 PM »
More Intelligence for Civilian Colony Ships

In v5.42, civilian colony ships only consider whether there is sufficient infrastructure at their destination to support the existing population plus their own colonists. This doesn't cause a serious problem in the early game. However, when you have fifty civilian colony ships who all decide to ship 100,000 colonists to a world with one million pop and enough infrastucture to support 1.1m, it can mean a seriously negative growth rate.

Therefore, in v5.50 civilian colony ships will consider whether there is sufficient infrastructure at their destination to support the existing population plus their own colonists plus the colonists of all other colony ships (both civilian and state-controlled) currently en route to that population.

This is obviously a significant performance overhead. To compensate, civilian colony ships will use the colony cost of the potential destination population as it was at the end of the terraforming phase of the last 5-day increment, rather than calcuating it every time they check a population.

Steve
« Last Edit: June 13, 2011, 01:11:17 PM by Steve Walmsley »
 

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Re: Change for v5.50
« Reply #6 on: June 28, 2011, 10:36:39 AM »
Black Hole System - this is a duplicate of a post in the normal Mechanics forum

I have added black holes to Aurora for v5.50. These are only available in Real Stars games for the moment but I may expand that to random games as well, depending on how well they work out. Obviously there are no known black holes close to Sol so some artistic licence is involved. I am just assuming we haven't spotted them yet Smiley. Or I guess the technobabble could be that the high gravity of distant black holes causes long-range jump points to form. I have considered black holes (and other stellar phenomena) for a while but I couldn't come up with a simple mechanic, especially as gravity doesn't really play a part in Aurora at the moment. Hopefully the following will be fun and straightforward and capture the basic scariness of black holes.

Each black hole is rated from Class I to Class X. The pull of the black hole is equal to 1000 km/s multiplied by the class, so a class IV black hole has a pull of 4000 km/s. If a fleet has a speed greater than the pull of the black hole then its speed is reduced by that pull but it can otherwise function normally. So a scout ship capable of 4500 km/s moving through a system with a class III black hole would move at 1500 km/s instead. If a fleet has a speed less then the black hole, then any orders are ignored (although not cancelled) and it is pulled straight toward the black hole at a speed equal to black hole pull minus fleet speed. So a fleet with a speed of 3200 km/s in a system with a class VI black hole would be pulled toward the black hole at 2800 km/s. On the system map, this pull speed is shown as a negative, so the aforementioned fleet would be shown as travelling at -2800 km/s.

When a fleet enters a black hole, all the ships in the fleet are instantly destroyed and leave no wreckage or life pods. A battle fought in a black hole system is going to be interesting because damaged ships are likely to get dragged away from the battle as they slow down. I haven't coded it yet but wrecks and lifepods will be pulled toward the black hole as well. As it would be very difficult to salvage a moving wreck I am also considering just not having any wreckage in black hole systems, although I would still have life pods.

A black hole system can be surveyed for jump points just like any other system. For purposes of the survey locations a black hole has stellar mass equal to its class, so higher class black hole systems will be harder to survey.

NPRs and civilians are aware of discovered black hole systems and will avoid them unless they have a sufficient speed advantage over the pull of the black hole.

Steve
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Change for v5.50
« Reply #7 on: July 24, 2011, 11:45:25 AM »
New Population List

In v5.50, the F2 Economics window will list colonies using a treeview, rather than a simple list. They are grouped by System, with the systems in order of total population. Each colony is shown with its primary attribute, such as population, number of automated mines, number of civilian mining complexes, etc. You can turn civilian mining complexes on/off to exclude those colonies from the list. This should make organising colonies a lot easier when you have a large empire.



EDIT: I have added an alternative view of populations. You can now group them function and system instead of just by system. Clicking the Group by Function checkbox will display populations as below. I have not expanded all branches for this screenshot.



Steve
« Last Edit: July 26, 2011, 04:03:52 PM by Steve Walmsley »