What the heck?

[AL]

I guess that's one of the main reasons we all love Aurora - all the freedom in the world to play it exactly the way we want.

[MarcAFK]

I always tinker with sm mode when setting up a new game, it doesn't just let you learn all tech or spawn super dreadnoughts, you have quite a bit of control over setting up your empire to suit the theme or setting you're playing under. For instance you might decide as I did to start with massive orbital habitats at Jupiter, Spacemaster lets me grab some higher tech for those, spawn them, then Delete the techs so the rest of my game was played with a more standard tech level. I needed to remove my old homeworld at earth and spawn an NPR there, then I scattered minerals around Jupiters uninhabitable Moons to support my growth. And finally I colonised another moon which I put all my factories on, the habitats were set up there to simulate my new orbital homeworld.

I also usually start at sub-Newtonian tech level, I give myself all the missing techs needed for an initial low tech fleet, magazine, sensors, laser, rail gun, power plant and troop transports and I'll design some max power multiplier conventional engines for the initial fleet. Then I remove the extra power research and trans Newtonian tech research so I need to learn that before any higher techs. Otherwise everything is the same as a standard conventional start. I then spawn a few ships using this soon outdated tech, I also force myself to not use nuclear thermal as soon as it's available, I'll actually wait untill the research is done, then force myself to use underpowered engines untill ion research is done. At which point I'll delete the just completed ion tech then finally allow myself unrestricted use of nuclear thermal.  It's complex, but I love low tech fleets and relish the opportunity to keep them active as long as possible, but I never liked the massive speed jump between conventional and nuclear thermal,  so doing this allows me an intermediary tech level before getting real engines.

[plasticpanzers (OP)]

Now I know something is wrong.  In the earlier version of Aurora I could see incoming missiles.   In my new games I
cannot see nor stop them at all except via CIWS.  Currently I am only in year 2038 and trying to avenge a kill of one
of my unarmed survey vessels in the very first system i go into with four well armed frigates.   ships that worked well
in the earlier Aurora version.   Another 'mighty mouse' enemy vessel, fairly small yet has 20 missile launchers with
strength 11 missiles that travel across my 30m km sensor belt unseen and repeatidly strike my vessel smells alot like
the problem i had last time.   In earlier versions at least my PD missiles could engage but none of my sensors even with
ECCM/EM/Thermal sensors even see the missles until they hit.   I refuse to play a cheat game with premade research
but i will not play with such cheating or an error in the system.   I will reload the older version tho with less features at
least does not do this evey game.   No missile can go over 30m km in 5 seconds and no NPR should have such high value
weapons so early.  pity and another waste of a day with another 5000kps super armed corvette with magic missiles....
and I know from playing the earlier version its not me nor am i stupid.

[Sematary]

38 years is not early. Even with conventional starts I am exploring within 10 years. With a normal start I am exploring within my first year. Also, SM is not cheating. I know at first it feels that way but its not.

[Sematary]

One other thing, what are your sensor resolutions? Are you saying you have a resolution 1 sensor that has a range of 30m km?

[plasticpanzers (OP)]

I am saying I played the same type of games earlier just like the how to on youtube with the earlier version.   Now notmatter
what i do these tiny little NPR ships are tearing me to pieces and I can do virtually nothing to stop them.   I have played this
game about 50 times so far evenly between the older gone version and the new version 7.   In the earlier versions my PD sensors
and missiles, hell even my standard ASMs, could take on enemy missiles.    I could see them coming in at the lowest 5 second
intervals.   Now they skip over 30million KM in 5 seconds and savage my ships.   Even a 25,000kps missile would only travel 125k
km in 5 seconds unless these are magic missiles with ultra ECM which is strange so early.   I start the game absolutly STOCK in
2000 with STOCK research and go from there.   I hate playing 'cheat mode' (SM) and getting all the toys early before I have even
launched a single vessel.   I could I suppose with my 9 research labs rush jump and go exploring but without a economic base at
all but then sometimes the bad guys follow my trail home and invade my system.  Not much fun.  There is NO fun for me to start
with a bunch of tech i have not earned by research down different paths.  This is not the same game as you see on the older how
to on Youtube anymore.   What I did right in the first 25 games with an empire in 40 years of 11 systems dies in 40 years going
into the first now.   My ships have active 39Mk sensors and AMM short range sensors out to 2mK and see nothing at all.   Only CIWS
does anything.  Even my beam weapons don't engage now.  I am wiping the game from my computer and starting over.  I am
going to give this another try but will not continue wasting nights doing this over and over and I refuse to cheat to play to win.
If the game is set up to play from the start you should be able to play that way just as well as starting with uber techs.

[Sematary]

First thing is first, I have said this before and so have others, SM mode is not cheating. It is a tool to help you set up the game because it is made by one person in his spare time. Can you use SM mode to cheat? Absolutely, but that is not the only way to use it. If you start with a normal start you are given a set number of points depending on how big your empire is to use for both research and to have ships be created with no other cost. These points are subtracted from when you use SM mode to instant research, or instant create ships. Its a part of the game.


Let me ask a question real quick. If there was a screen before you started giving you so many points to spend on research and so many points to create a starting fleet would you see that as cheating?

As for referencing the youtube videos, I have never seen them so I have no frame of reference. Also when you say "the earlier version" I don't know which you mean. In the last two years, which is how long I have been playing Aurora, the game has gone from version 5.40 (I think) to now 7.00 soon to be 7.10. A rough estimate (and Steve or others could give a better answer) is there are at least 12 "earlier versions" in that span. Each of them has had several changes, some of them have had huge changes. Strategies that worked in 5.40 don't work in 7.00 because there is that much difference between the two of them.

I really would like to help you because it sounds like you are getting very frustrated at the game and as someone who was there once and loves the game to death I don't like to see that. What I need to help you is specifics. If you have sensors with resolution 1 that see out to 30 million kilometers and aren't seeing the missiles that is one thing, if you have sensors with resolution 100 that see 30 million kilometers and aren't seeing the missiles that is something completely different. In your other thread you posted an early version of one of your geological survey ships and both MarcAFK and I were able to give you some solid suggestions on how to improve the ship. In fact there is a whole subforum on here that is dedicated to people posting their ship designs and then discussing the designs. If you give us specifics like that we can talk about how to do things better.

In your other thread you say "another screwy outcome with vastly overpowered vessels in 2038 (only 38 years into game). will go back to earlier version of Aurora where at least my ships could fight." With that information all I can say is I wouldn't use the phrase only 38 years into the game. What did your ships exactly look like? What do you know about the enemy ships? And more than that saying "I have a sensor with a 30 million kilometer range" tells me nothing. With first level sensors if I set resolution to 100 I can get pretty close to 30 million kilometers and they wouldn't see a missile until it was within 100 kilometers at best. First level sensors with resolution 1 can see about 2 million kilometers without having to make it that big, a missile would have to be traveling at about 400,000 kps to travel that distance in 5 seconds and that is very unlikely.

[plasticpanzers (OP)]

thank you for your help but i have deleted all my past games to clear up space.   i will attempt later to redownload the 7.0 patch version.

i have played the previous to 7.0 patch version whatever that was.  I have watched a number of hours of how to play aurora 4x on youtube
and am surprise you don't know about it.   You certainly cannot play whatsoever from just downloading and playing that way unless you have
tons of spare hours for trial and error.   This is how i learned to play and was doing quite well until patch 7.0.  Perhaps its a bug.  I have no
idea.   Having a bitch of a time getting it reloading now.   Keeps crashing even tho i follow all the instructions.   I hate wasting time on a game.

My earlier ships worked fine.  My earlier sensors worked fine.   My earlier missles worked fine.  They don't now.  Its that simple.  I do appreciate
the concern but I know what did work and what now apparently does not for whatever reason.

SM is cheating unless you like to start without having to actually do the work of reseraching techs.   How on earth could a civilization have all
that info yet not have a ship in space?  That is just my point of view.   Its like playing WW2 with it starting with 1945 techs.   Not happening
for me.  No fun.   No suprise.   No adventure.

I do appreciate the help but remember you and others here have been playing a long time and perhaps are well versed in computer knowledge.
Not all of us are that lucky.  I do have an IQ of around 150 and have been gaming for 50 or more years.  Those used to and comfortable with
systems they have used for a long time don't understand that those new to a system cannot easily get into it so quickly and get frustrated with
the comments and quizzes 'why don't you understand, its so simple'.  It is not unless you have done it for awhile.   This has always been my
beef with computer game makers (free or not).   They are immersed in their systems and don't understand they are alien to many folks til they
are themselves immersed in them.  Its a different way of thinking from board games, no matter how advanced.

There is an issue with the game and how it operates now.   You and others in it for awhile may not see it but i have expierence it in the transistion
from my first 25 games played with fun and the later 25 which have been terribly frustrating.   I will give it a go but I won't continue to use my time
(what i have left) playing something that either does not work or work right or itself cheats forcing you to cheat to play it properly.   Don't take
offense,  thats just my point of view.

Edit: I think Steve has done an amazing job and the game itself appears amazing.   Don't get me wrong.  I do appreciate that he has done this in
his own time but I play the game in my own time and its just as valuable to me as his is to him.

[CharonJr]

7.0 could be a part of the problem, most x.0 versions still have some serious bugs. Due to this I usually wait for a x.1 release before starting a new game. There is alredy a fairly lengthy 7.0 bug thread and fixes for 7.1.

Till Steve releases 7.1 I would stick with 6.43 or take a break.

[Panopticon]

Good lord dude this is getting silly, no one cares or needs to know about your gaming history or IQ, and none of us can help you unless you actually give details on your problem, like telling us your sensor resolutions for one.

You should also consider that if literally everyone responding to you about SM mode are saying it isn't cheating, and only you are saying it is cheating, then you might actually be wrong about it, there isn't anything wrong with that.

When you create a game you are given a number of RP to spend on tech and designs,  you are also given a bunch of points to spend on ships made with those designs, both the points are based on your starting population, and nothing other than your own self control keeps you from going over that, this isn't cheating, the NPRs get similar advantages. You keep saying "How on earth could a civilization have all that info yet not have a ship in space" I point you towards the part where I said you get points to spend on ships, you can both have those techs and have ships in space very easily, it is in fact encouraged! You can also set the system to be surveyed and customize minerals on planets as well, or simply let your freshly built surveyors do the job once the game starts.

This is not cheating, it is a basic feature of the game and one you should use if you want to maintain parity with the NPR advancement, and to have a fighting chance of dealing with certain spoiler enemies if they are turned on.

Just... take a step back, take a deep breath, acknowledge that you might not know everything, and that with the new version something might actually be broken and if you found it the only way you can get help is to give real details, then use the people here as a resource and not simply climb into your shell at the first sign of disagreement.

[MarcAFK]

There was a bug posted recently which seemed to have civilian ships magically teleporting across a system to ram enemy ships, perhaps there's something similar ?
But if that's not the case I'll repeat my claim that posting ship designs helps resolve problems.
Detecting missiles isn't easy, resolution 1 sensors actually only detect 50 ton objects at their full range. A size 100 missile is 50 tons. Their minimum detection range is for size 6 or smaller missiles and I believe that's close to only a tenth the full range of the sensor. Generally you want a large missile detection sensor on a dedicated sensor vessel or missile defence ship.
Thermal sensors detect based on an objects engine output, fast large missiles show up easily on large thermals but tiny size 1s may not be detected unless your sensor is very powerful.
I'm sorry your frustrated but it seems you've either gotten a raw deal with a bug or you need to invest in much better resolution 1 sensors.

[GreatTuna]

A size 100 missile is 50 tons.

Actually, size 20 missile is 50 tons. Size 100 missile is 250.
Just saying.

[MarcAFK]

Uh.... Yeah I knew that :p

[AL]

Maybe it would be more helpful/beneficial if we could help out in real time as he is playing the game... possibly try and set up some kind of voice chat (maybe screen share too)?

Otherwise, maybe it's about time we made some updated video tutorials. I haven't checked youtube for tutorials in a while, but I'm guessing the ones out there are getting fairly dated now.

[plasticpanzers (OP)]

Gee, sorry I upset you Pan.   Since you complain about my complaining I suppose I could suggest you are one of the issues
of folks who post not to explain a viewpoint but to attack those who have one.   I spoke about myself to explain I am not a
12 year old playing the game but an experienced long time gamer who is not particuarly stupid but you seem to disagree. 

Since I did not find your post in any way helpful maybe you should step back and take a look at yourself. 

My 'viewpoint' is that starting the game with all the 'toys' in the box and available is not as fun as learning tech as you go along
and going down different paths (fighter/missile/beams).   To start with mageto-pulse drive with no ships in space is wierd unless
you start with ships already.  That is a choice that some (it appears alot) of players make (its easier i suppose).  I (me or also
known as myself) choose the longer path.  That is also how the setup screen is set with doing the 'all the toys' being the option
and not the norm by the look of it (and it does mention SM being for 'experienced players'.   I am an 'experienced player' from
other games and years of playing wargames (and am a mil sci-fi buff).

Also I enjoy trying out my own designs (my Nike-Ajax missiles were quite effective) but if I have trouble fitting 4 launchers with alot
of support gear for long voyages on a 12,000 ton hull going 4k kps and run across an enemy vessel with 20 launchers as large as mine
going 5k kps on a 9000 ton hull and taking hundreds of points of hits and only slowing down with no loss in combat value while it rips
4 of my ships to pieces in 5 minutes I have an issue.   It may be my designs but I do look at others and mine are not far off for the
level of tech I am using.

starting a game in 2000 and by 2038 and having surveyed Sol and set up an industrial base for my empire to support ship building and
exploration by 2038 because I want my ships to have magneto pulse drives and for my missiles as well (I do get speed is good now).
What is the good of looking into other systems and disturbing the bees if I don't have the industrial base to fight with or even take ad-
vantage of what i find?  Looking back at our current space programs I think in a 1000 star game 38 years to explore the solar system
and build an intrasystem economic base with one or two off planet colonies is not really "slow" or "turtlelike".

By extensive research before daring to go out there (no model A cars in LaMans) I generally choose missiles supported by at least level
2 CIWS with UV lasers in support (min 36,000 km range before sensor addons).  Gamma shields, composite armor.   My sensors are good
enough not for system wide attack but about 30-50m k for missiles and longer for active and 2-3m k for AMMs which I install as well.

My survey cruisers generally had 1 size 6-9 launcher and 1-2 AMM launchers, 2 CIWS, 1500kps commercial drives for long range (48 months)
They traveled in groups of 4 supported by 4 frigates with 4 6-9 size launchers/2 AMM launchers/4000kps speed/2 CIWS and appropriate
armor and shields.  They are SLOW but designed not for combat but for long term survey work.  Once one checks for the 'all clear' for any
hostiles (not always sucessful in seeing them til its too late) then it calls in the other 3 to survey the system.   Escort frigates with a tanker
usually sit on the other side of the jump point.

It was one of my survey cruiser squadrons (the M squadron) that ran into 'mighty mouse' that appeared to have eternal load magazines
and uber missles.  In 25 earlier games even my ASMs could and did engage and destroy enemy ASMs.   In the current patch 7 I don't even
see enemy missiles til they strike.  I am using the very same designs in my post patch 7 games as from the earlier pre-patch 7 games.
I don't see the missiles at all til they strike, again.   same design for sensors, same design for defences.  You can, I hope, see my frustration.
I have tried variations of sensors in the last 3 tries, no go.  Still don't see their missiles (4 launchers on enemy ship last game, 20! in this
last game on a 9000 ton hull (can't be box launchers as I am hit over and over).  Only my CIWS defends.   My 12,000 speed dual 12cm
UV laser turrets with 4x speed and darn good sensors (I did mention I researched well before leaving home?) did nothing in post patch 7
games but did fire in pre-patch 7 games.

I appeared to be extremely fortunate the my 4 survey crusiers kept pounding out their Nike-Ajax missiles and finally beat 'mighty mouse'
to death after 3 of my 4 survey crusiers died.   Until it died it appeared on a 9050 ton hull to take over 240 damage points and only slow
down and never lost a weapon.  It got down from 4000 kps to about 1300 from earlier damage and seemed to repair itself and was back
up to 3300 kps after destroying the 1st survey cruiser before the other 3 arrived as a group to help and finally killed it with mass hits.

I don't want to borrow other designs but I do enjoy looking them over (like Jane's Fighting Ships).  I go my own path with designs tho based
upon research and what can fit into the hull after engines and jump drives.   I enjoy the game greatly.  I am darned good at ecomonics and
research.   I was not bad at combat pre-patch 7.   I feel like a blind sloth currently.   You can understand that frustration.

The 'how to play Aurora 4x' videos were extensive.   About 20min to about 40min and started just like i start my games, beginning at the
beginning so to speak.   My designs and work were based upon watching the vids and they did work pre patch 7.   They don't work the same
now and that is my issue.   If it do what works and the game changes and what worked no longer works its not me.   You can understand
that frustration (again).  I don't think the enemy missiles of strength 11-13 are size one missiles.  I did see enemy missiles in earlier pre7
games that i don't see now.  Again, same sensors and i overlap the regular active/missile/PD missile sensors and still see nothing til i get
whacked.

Again Steve and it appears others have put tons of work into a wonderful project.  I enjoy it.  I would enjoy it more if things that worked
earlier worked the same.   It just seems that here I am holding a screwdriver and suddenly somebody took the head off the screw.  When,
either I can find out what I appear to be doing wrong (that was right earlier) or what the system is doing wrong (if anything) then I will
enjoy the game even more.   But i will still play it my way which is learn, search, fight, expand.