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Posted by: Rich.h
« on: April 09, 2021, 09:15:06 AM »

While there isn't yet a mechanic for dealing with MSP and fuel in a fully automated way. I really don't see the OP as an inssue for minerals.

Unless I am just really lucky in my game there isn't ever a problem, I just make use of things we already have, my logistics are laid out like this.

To start with Earth will be my only point of industry and the only place that needs minerals, when inside a system I make extensive use of mass drivers to shift things. They might not throw stuff around at fast speeds, but once the flow starts it just works perfectly and you can forget about it. As a mining operation starts to exceed the MD capacity you expand it to keep up, if this is done in a way where your MD capacity always slightly exceeds your mining then it will always balance out and keep 100% of minerals heading where they should be. As my empire grows beyond Earth to other Sol bodies I make a start on a MD network, for example I have colonised Mars and Titan with industrial capacity. First all MDs shoot for Titan, then Titan shoots to Mars, and Mars to Earth, this just expands and gets altered anytime I need minerals onto a new body. By using this combined with recourse limits on a planet I can control the minimum amount a colony needs to grow, and just alter the minimums whenever needed. This means that my freighters in Sol are only being used for shipping facilities around about 90% of the time, and I can forget about having to conduct mineral management orders. The exception to this is a small group of freighters kept in standby, these are used to ferry minerals to a new colony that might be in need of a kickstart to get up and running.

This approach applies to every single system in my empire so each system only ever has one final destination point where all excess minerals end up. To then shift this between systems in a simple repeat order of frieghters, pick up at point A and drop at point B, with a refuel order thrown in too. Once that starts you can again forget about doing anything for them for the most part, all they ever need is the occasional check to see if they are coping with the workload. If their capacity has been exceeded, then just build another frieghter and add it to that group.

Using this method my only real outlay costs are the mass drivers, but once they are established then you forget about them forever. over their lifespan I would argue they cost you less in minerals and definitely an exponential less amount of work to control than using freighters everywhere.

I'm not sure where an issue arises with a freighter not being able to load all minerals and then only loading them in order lies. That to me sounds like simple logistics, and is solved by just having two freighters. If the capacity of a transport is being outweighed by the output of a mine, then no matter what approach you take you will always have the same problem. The only solution is to increase your transport capacity, or reduce your mining output.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: April 08, 2021, 03:55:06 PM »


I have too few mineral sinks - i only encountered few precursors and Aether Rift spawned in 3 jumps from Sol - i noticed only few gravsurvey ships and few combat ships and wasted only missles so far.
My expansion build around concept of sectors - i invest heavily in central colony in the beginning and bordering systems so they can be fortified with static defences (so i could build habitats) and lot of automated mines. After that i go to the next target.
After that scheme with Earth repeats itself (when Earth / Central colony serves as population source for other colonies) in new sector.

I get what you mean... if you have a large enough production capacity to build all the Automatic mines you ever will need the only way is to add more industry and less of other facilities. I usually try to not have too much in the way of Fighter & Ordnance facilities as an example as I don't want industry to stand idle too much. Some small over capacity in some location might be wise but otherwise I want them building stuff rather than not, the same goes for naval and commercial yards for example.

I also play at very slow tech progression so that might also factor in to why I find it harder to get to the point I have all the minerals I need and then some... another way for me is to play with several factions at the same time, that means that military also have to be more of a priority in general which is another resource sink, even if you are not at war you always have to be prepared for it.
So... some factors in my games are 10-20% research rates, 25% terraforming rate, 5% survey speeds and I only have about 40% gravity tolerances. All of which make the game more resource intensive in general.

Finding the right balance in how large portion of your population are dedicated to industry (factory production) is a tricky one.
Posted by: d.rodin
« on: April 08, 2021, 10:13:26 AM »

I do this even more "efficient" in using much smaller mineral haulers... down to about 2000t cargo size sometimes where each ship only haul one mineral type. I also use as slow and fuel efficient engines as possible... the reason being that minerals is should never be a time sensitive operation unlike facility transport which is.

You then can use a mix of pick up X amount, wait until X available and/or minimum available and colony reserve levels.

I mainly use mass drivers to move minerals within systems and mineral haulers to move minerals in between systems. Only one planets in each system act as the mineral hub for transport in between systems.

Having on small mineral hauler with a cargo capacity of 2000t, 6000t I can optimise the distribution of minerals and have them flow quite nicely in all the empire for a reasonable price in fuel. I also can add and remove transport on each route as I need them for each individual mineral.

I also distribute industry to all populations as I always want each colony to be self sufficient in building what they need, thus moving minerals efficiently is important to me.

Too complex, while no practical benefits for me, since i don't have problems with fuel:

I don't research low power engines technology because civilians will use it.
Less ships&fleets - less impact on game performance.
Less ship types - less problems with upgrading them.
Collection of system minerals in one colony is practical when system has one distinct "center colony" - about half of my populated systems can have two or more more or less equal colonies : next jump from Sol system is Alpha Centauri in my game, it has 6 planets with 10+bln population capacity - three are already populated and two are in top 3 by population after Earth. So i need the ability to maintain large-scale flow of minerals in both directions to maintain large scale industrial activity of colonies. So i use star topology instead of tree in intra-sector minerals transportation.
Sector here is more virtual entity, while it corresponds with actual sector command : no more than 2 jumps from center colony and there is one colony in center that serves as hub of intra-sector mineral transportation.
The only downside here is that large amount of minerals is stored on colonies and constantly flying in space.

I still actually research low power engines for use in my own designs... I just SM techs out after designing something so civilians use 0.5x engines.. mainly for game performance. I think this is an ill thought out mechanic to be honest that does not help either the player or game performance. Civilians are better of just using 0.5x power level on their engines always for game performance reason. They don't gain any benefit from lower power engines anyway as they don't earn more money or burn less fuel this way, rather the contrary they earn less money as they move slower and build more ships which lower game performance. Game mechanically it makes no sense for civilians to utilise this technology even if it makes sense from a more "realistic" perspective.

I tend to build a rather large commercial fleet in my games as I want the ability to expand as quickly as possible. I also want to be able to build a larger industry to maximise my populations workforce as soon as possible. Then I also must spread out as much as possible to make sure that my population grow as fast as possible.

These are things I find interesting in Aurora to "optimise" in a role-play way, trying to make my empire (or empires) as "efficient" as possible whatever that means. But mostly it means making sure that as much population as possible are working with something, it hurt my brain when my population are not working... some unemployed workforce is OK but not more than 5-10%

If you have too much abundance of any resources they are ultimately badly utilised, this also include fuel, supplies, population or any other mineral.

I have too few mineral sinks - i only encountered few precursors and Aether Rift spawned in 3 jumps from Sol - i noticed only few gravsurvey ships and few combat ships and wasted only missles so far.
My expansion build around concept of sectors - i invest heavily in central colony in the beginning and bordering systems so they can be fortified with static defences (so i could build habitats) and lot of automated mines. After that i go to the next target.
After that scheme with Earth repeats itself (when Earth / Central colony serves as population source for other colonies) in new sector.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: April 08, 2021, 09:27:28 AM »

I do this even more "efficient" in using much smaller mineral haulers... down to about 2000t cargo size sometimes where each ship only haul one mineral type. I also use as slow and fuel efficient engines as possible... the reason being that minerals is should never be a time sensitive operation unlike facility transport which is.

You then can use a mix of pick up X amount, wait until X available and/or minimum available and colony reserve levels.

I mainly use mass drivers to move minerals within systems and mineral haulers to move minerals in between systems. Only one planets in each system act as the mineral hub for transport in between systems.

Having on small mineral hauler with a cargo capacity of 2000t, 6000t I can optimise the distribution of minerals and have them flow quite nicely in all the empire for a reasonable price in fuel. I also can add and remove transport on each route as I need them for each individual mineral.

I also distribute industry to all populations as I always want each colony to be self sufficient in building what they need, thus moving minerals efficiently is important to me.

Too complex, while no practical benefits for me, since i don't have problems with fuel:

I don't research low power engines technology because civilians will use it.
Less ships&fleets - less impact on game performance.
Less ship types - less problems with upgrading them.
Collection of system minerals in one colony is practical when system has one distinct "center colony" - about half of my populated systems can have two or more more or less equal colonies : next jump from Sol system is Alpha Centauri in my game, it has 6 planets with 10+bln population capacity - three are already populated and two are in top 3 by population after Earth. So i need the ability to maintain large-scale flow of minerals in both directions to maintain large scale industrial activity of colonies. So i use star topology instead of tree in intra-sector minerals transportation.
Sector here is more virtual entity, while it corresponds with actual sector command : no more than 2 jumps from center colony and there is one colony in center that serves as hub of intra-sector mineral transportation.
The only downside here is that large amount of minerals is stored on colonies and constantly flying in space.

I still actually research low power engines for use in my own designs... I just SM techs out after designing something so civilians use 0.5x engines.. mainly for game performance. I think this is an ill thought out mechanic to be honest that does not help either the player or game performance. Civilians are better of just using 0.5x power level on their engines always for game performance reason. They don't gain any benefit from lower power engines anyway as they don't earn more money or burn less fuel this way, rather the contrary they earn less money as they move slower and build more ships which lower game performance. Game mechanically it makes no sense for civilians to utilise this technology even if it makes sense from a more "realistic" perspective.

I tend to build a rather large commercial fleet in my games as I want the ability to expand as quickly as possible. I also want to be able to build a larger industry to maximise my populations workforce as soon as possible. Then I also must spread out as much as possible to make sure that my population grow as fast as possible.

These are things I find interesting in Aurora to "optimise" in a role-play way, trying to make my empire (or empires) as "efficient" as possible whatever that means. But mostly it means making sure that as much population as possible are working with something, it hurt my brain when my population are not working... some unemployed workforce is OK but not more than 5-10%

If you have too much abundance of any resources they are ultimately badly utilised, this also include fuel, supplies, population or any other mineral.
Posted by: d.rodin
« on: April 08, 2021, 07:44:29 AM »

I do this even more "efficient" in using much smaller mineral haulers... down to about 2000t cargo size sometimes where each ship only haul one mineral type. I also use as slow and fuel efficient engines as possible... the reason being that minerals is should never be a time sensitive operation unlike facility transport which is.

You then can use a mix of pick up X amount, wait until X available and/or minimum available and colony reserve levels.

I mainly use mass drivers to move minerals within systems and mineral haulers to move minerals in between systems. Only one planets in each system act as the mineral hub for transport in between systems.

Having on small mineral hauler with a cargo capacity of 2000t, 6000t I can optimise the distribution of minerals and have them flow quite nicely in all the empire for a reasonable price in fuel. I also can add and remove transport on each route as I need them for each individual mineral.

I also distribute industry to all populations as I always want each colony to be self sufficient in building what they need, thus moving minerals efficiently is important to me.

Too complex, while no practical benefits for me, since i don't have problems with fuel:

I don't research low power engines technology because civilians will use it.
Less ships&fleets - less impact on game performance.
Less ship types - less problems with upgrading them.
Collection of system minerals in one colony is practical when system has one distinct "center colony" - about half of my populated systems can have two or more more or less equal colonies : next jump from Sol system is Alpha Centauri in my game, it has 6 planets with 10+bln population capacity - three are already populated and two are in top 3 by population after Earth. So i need the ability to maintain large-scale flow of minerals in both directions to maintain large scale industrial activity of colonies. So i use star topology instead of tree in intra-sector minerals transportation.
Sector here is more virtual entity, while it corresponds with actual sector command : no more than 2 jumps from center colony and there is one colony in center that serves as hub of intra-sector mineral transportation.
The only downside here is that large amount of minerals is stored on colonies and constantly flying in space.

Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: April 08, 2021, 05:47:57 AM »

I do this even more "efficient" in using much smaller mineral haulers... down to about 2000t cargo size sometimes where each ship only haul one mineral type. I also use as slow and fuel efficient engines as possible... the reason being that minerals is should never be a time sensitive operation unlike facility transport which is.

You then can use a mix of pick up X amount, wait until X available and/or minimum available and colony reserve levels.

I mainly use mass drivers to move minerals within systems and mineral haulers to move minerals in between systems. Only one planets in each system act as the mineral hub for transport in between systems.

Having on small mineral hauler with a cargo capacity of 2000t, 6000t I can optimise the distribution of minerals and have them flow quite nicely in all the empire for a reasonable price in fuel. I also can add and remove transport on each route as I need them for each individual mineral.

I also distribute industry to all populations as I always want each colony to be self sufficient in building what they need, thus moving minerals efficiently is important to me.
Posted by: d.rodin
« on: April 07, 2021, 04:21:49 PM »

We also could get access to a bit better ways to conduct contracts.

Right now I have to update my contracts every year or else I'm spammed with messages they can't pick up stuff.

I should be able to set contract such as a general demand and general supply of installations. Which means a planet that build mines have a general supply and then I can set a demand for 100 mines and ships would not just look at the demand but that there is a mine available before they get assigned to pick it up. Once a mine is reserved nothing else can pick it up. This way I would not have to babysit my supply and demand all the time.

In addition to this I would like to have more command to automate shipping runs manually... even changing things like amounts and delay times on orders without having to recreate the entire order would be really good. Let's say you have a transport set to pick up 5000 Duranium and deliver them to X colony and a delay of 90 days. After a few years you might want to change to 90 days to 75 days as you need more stuff being sent there every year. Now you have to recreate the order... if would be easier to just pick the row and change the value.

There probably are many other automation functionalities I would like to be added.

Being able to set reserve levels for installations and create minerals contracts for civies to fill planets up to reserve would be brilliant. Everything else is a bonus for me.

This would be really nice.

I would really like to have more automation for moving materials around in general just due to the sheer agony of trying to do it manually.

i use fast 25k cargo size transports
set reserve of minerals on colony
orders (starting point : Earth):

Earth: load Durantium x1000
Earth: load Neutronium x1000
and all other minerals types x1000
Earth: Refuel&Resupply
Colony: Unload all minerals
Colony: Load all Minerals
Earth: Unload all Minerals

and Cycle Moves.
If minerals are belov colony reserve level - transport picks up nothing, if minerals are above reserve level - transport picks it up and unloads at Earth

The main problem I have with this is when the colony produces more than the shipping rate, Load all Minerals does not ensure an even distribution of minerals, so it just goes down the list. This becomes a problem on planets that have many types of minerals being mined.

Can be tuned with increasing cargo / decreasing loaded on Earth minerals. Cheap, fast transport can be done with 35k cargo and fit into sub100k tonns size.
Something like that :
Quote
Akmolinsk-F G9M class Freighter      88 842 tons       584 Crew       6 855.4 BP       TCS 1 777    TH 25 000    EM 0
14070 km/s      Armour 1-177       Shields 0-0       HTK 96      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 18      PPV 0
MSP 385    Max Repair 1562.5 MSP
Cargo 35 000    Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 10   
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months   

Commercial Gas Core AM Drive 50% EP6250.00 (4)    Power 25000    Fuel Use 0.35%    Signature 6250    Explosion 5%
Fuel Capacity 1 000 000 Litres    Range 573.1 billion km (471 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
Posted by: Droll
« on: April 07, 2021, 03:45:58 PM »

We also could get access to a bit better ways to conduct contracts.

Right now I have to update my contracts every year or else I'm spammed with messages they can't pick up stuff.

I should be able to set contract such as a general demand and general supply of installations. Which means a planet that build mines have a general supply and then I can set a demand for 100 mines and ships would not just look at the demand but that there is a mine available before they get assigned to pick it up. Once a mine is reserved nothing else can pick it up. This way I would not have to babysit my supply and demand all the time.

In addition to this I would like to have more command to automate shipping runs manually... even changing things like amounts and delay times on orders without having to recreate the entire order would be really good. Let's say you have a transport set to pick up 5000 Duranium and deliver them to X colony and a delay of 90 days. After a few years you might want to change to 90 days to 75 days as you need more stuff being sent there every year. Now you have to recreate the order... if would be easier to just pick the row and change the value.

There probably are many other automation functionalities I would like to be added.

Being able to set reserve levels for installations and create minerals contracts for civies to fill planets up to reserve would be brilliant. Everything else is a bonus for me.

This would be really nice.

I would really like to have more automation for moving materials around in general just due to the sheer agony of trying to do it manually.

i use fast 25k cargo size transports
set reserve of minerals on colony
orders (starting point : Earth):

Earth: load Durantium x1000
Earth: load Neutronium x1000
and all other minerals types x1000
Earth: Refuel&Resupply
Colony: Unload all minerals
Colony: Load all Minerals
Earth: Unload all Minerals

and Cycle Moves.
If minerals are belov colony reserve level - transport picks up nothing, if minerals are above reserve level - transport picks it up and unloads at Earth

The main problem I have with this is when the colony produces more than the shipping rate, Load all Minerals does not ensure an even distribution of minerals, so it just goes down the list. This becomes a problem on planets that have many types of minerals being mined.
Posted by: d.rodin
« on: April 07, 2021, 02:48:38 PM »

We also could get access to a bit better ways to conduct contracts.

Right now I have to update my contracts every year or else I'm spammed with messages they can't pick up stuff.

I should be able to set contract such as a general demand and general supply of installations. Which means a planet that build mines have a general supply and then I can set a demand for 100 mines and ships would not just look at the demand but that there is a mine available before they get assigned to pick it up. Once a mine is reserved nothing else can pick it up. This way I would not have to babysit my supply and demand all the time.

In addition to this I would like to have more command to automate shipping runs manually... even changing things like amounts and delay times on orders without having to recreate the entire order would be really good. Let's say you have a transport set to pick up 5000 Duranium and deliver them to X colony and a delay of 90 days. After a few years you might want to change to 90 days to 75 days as you need more stuff being sent there every year. Now you have to recreate the order... if would be easier to just pick the row and change the value.

There probably are many other automation functionalities I would like to be added.

Being able to set reserve levels for installations and create minerals contracts for civies to fill planets up to reserve would be brilliant. Everything else is a bonus for me.

This would be really nice.

I would really like to have more automation for moving materials around in general just due to the sheer agony of trying to do it manually.

i use fast 25k cargo size transports
set reserve of minerals on colony
orders (starting point : Earth):

Earth: load Durantium x1000
Earth: load Neutronium x1000
and all other minerals types x1000
Earth: Refuel&Resupply
Colony: Unload all minerals
Colony: Load all Minerals
Earth: Unload all Minerals

and Cycle Moves.
If minerals are belov colony reserve level - transport picks up nothing, if minerals are above reserve level - transport picks it up and unloads at Earth
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: February 10, 2021, 02:45:49 AM »


You could see it as your fault :)   You paid them too high a wage on your homeworld, now they have a sizable nest egg to go off to an exotic new planet and buy lots of land and be rich....and not work.

The issue is the current simplicity. Citizens aren't required to work to live comfortably, therefor zipping off to some planet that has no jobs isn't a problem.

A Reserve setting for pop (like minerals) or a max pop allowed setting on a body would work.

Then again... are they really not working?!?

In my opinion this is a faulty logic to begin with. The economics in the game are just very abstracted. Available workers just mean population NOT required for basic civilian economic needs, it does not mean these people have no jobs. It's not like society require the government to provide these people with jobs outside of the regular sectors.

This is just a highly abstracted mechanic. Available worker is just that...  available to the player for use in the buildings and installation they build. Its's not like your population will become mad or low on morale if there are allot of available workforce.

It also should not be a huge problem to move people as long as you don't have worker shortage someplace, then you need to make sure that world no longer provide population for colonisation.
Posted by: QuakeIV
« on: February 09, 2021, 08:38:22 PM »

I'd really prefer if it just didn't overfill past available jobs by default...
Posted by: Kylemmie
« on: February 09, 2021, 09:50:34 AM »

Oh also:

It would be nice if there was an option to set a world to only receive citizens from civil shipping if there are jobs for them.  I personally think this should be the default.

Migration is another aspect of the game I think could do with some fleshing out. There should be 'push' and 'pull' factors for planets based on stuff like unemployment/work shortages that influences how attractive they are as a colony destination/source.
\\

I agree.  In particular I dislike that I can have a 0.0 colony cost 'destination' colony more or less vacuum my home planet dry and not really notice until its exceeded the population of the homeworld.  Its even weirder when my budget then crashes after I disable this, because I was making so much money taxing the shipping companies for the privilege of moving workers somewhere that they wont have any employment and aren't needed, so why on earth did the workers pay to move there in the first place?

You could see it as your fault :)   You paid them too high a wage on your homeworld, now they have a sizable nest egg to go off to an exotic new planet and buy lots of land and be rich....and not work.

The issue is the current simplicity. Citizens aren't required to work to live comfortably, therefor zipping off to some planet that has no jobs isn't a problem.

A Reserve setting for pop (like minerals) or a max pop allowed setting on a body would work.
Posted by: QuakeIV
« on: February 09, 2021, 01:52:38 AM »

Oh also:

It would be nice if there was an option to set a world to only receive citizens from civil shipping if there are jobs for them.  I personally think this should be the default.

Migration is another aspect of the game I think could do with some fleshing out. There should be 'push' and 'pull' factors for planets based on stuff like unemployment/work shortages that influences how attractive they are as a colony destination/source.

I agree.  In particular I dislike that I can have a 0.0 colony cost 'destination' colony more or less vacuum my home planet dry and not really notice until its exceeded the population of the homeworld.  Its even weirder when my budget then crashes after I disable this, because I was making so much money taxing the shipping companies for the privilege of moving workers somewhere that they wont have any employment and aren't needed, so why on earth did the workers pay to move there in the first place?
Posted by: Ektor
« on: February 09, 2021, 01:50:22 AM »

I really like this idea.
Posted by: Borealis4x
« on: February 05, 2021, 09:54:02 AM »

Oh also:

It would be nice if there was an option to set a world to only receive citizens from civil shipping if there are jobs for them.  I personally think this should be the default.

Migration is another aspect of the game I think could do with some fleshing out. There should be 'push' and 'pull' factors for planets based on stuff like unemployment/work shortages that influences how attractive they are as a colony destination/source.