C# Aurora v0.x Questions

[snapto]

Loved the recent screenies of the npr ai in action.  On the Ground Combat->Order of Battle tab, I was wondering what the "Field Position" button did?  Thanks for all the hard work Steve. Can't wait to play!!

[Steve Walmsley]

Field position sets the formation to front-line attack, front-line defence, support or rear-echelon. It affects how the formation participates in ground combat.

[King-Salomon]

As you said you are atm at "boarding combat" Steve..

is in your planing a point were a ship/crew in a desperate situation (no chance of winning) might surrender when/before beeing boarded?

in a war (better: between races that take POW's) it seems too lunatic to "fight to the last man"... so maybe if the captain of a ship nows that there is no point in resistence he/it should surrender when crippled (or even out-runned) - but at least when beeing boarded...

in a war with a race which does not take POW's (or worse, might even eat them) fighting to the last man (and even blow up the ship while beeing boarded to not let the enemy take it or the crew corpses) might make sense

this might also bring some more "differences" between NPR's (some take POW's others don't, others collect the bodys as food source)

[King-Salomon]

just going through the old chance-topics... and a question came up about "refulling"...

is using "transfering fuel to a planet" the same new rules as refulling?

so will a harvester (or the system body the harvester wants to drop the fuel) needs the new equipment/installation too?

I guess it will be the case (also of course the tanker which get's refueled)?

just wanted to be sure.. nice chance ... no more "dumping" all the fuel on a moon without installations for the harvesters...

[Steve Walmsley]

just going through the old chance-topics... and a question came up about "refulling"...

is using "transfering fuel to a planet" the same new rules as refulling?

so will a harvester (or the system body the harvester wants to drop the fuel) needs the new equipment/installation too?

I guess it will be the case (also of course the tanker which get's refueled)?

just wanted to be sure.. nice chance ... no more "dumping" all the fuel on a moon without installations for the harvesters...

When transferring fuel to a colony, you need a refuelling system on the delivery ship and the colony needs a refuelling station or spaceport. You can transfer to a ship using a refuelling system (or hub, or station) and the target ship does not require any special equipment. If you send a tanker to collect fuel from the harvester, the harvester would still need the refuelling system as it is the 'tanker' in this situation. The refuelling system on the harvester also means that any ship can refuel at a harvester, not just tankers.

[Steve Walmsley]

As you said you are atm at "boarding combat" Steve..

is in your planing a point were a ship/crew in a desperate situation (no chance of winning) might surrender when/before beeing boarded?

in a war (better: between races that take POW's) it seems too lunatic to "fight to the last man"... so maybe if the captain of a ship nows that there is no point in resistence he/it should surrender when crippled (or even out-runned) - but at least when beeing boarded...

in a war with a race which does not take POW's (or worse, might even eat them) fighting to the last man (and even blow up the ship while beeing boarded to not let the enemy take it or the crew corpses) might make sense

this might also bring some more "differences" between NPR's (some take POW's others don't, others collect the bodys as food source)

Yes, that is a good point. I'll look at surrenders and the possibility of self-destruction using the species stats involved.

[King-Salomon]

When transferring fuel to a colony, you need a refuelling system on the delivery ship and the colony needs a refuelling station or spaceport. You can transfer to a ship using a refuelling system (or hub, or station) and the target ship does not require any special equipment. If you send a tanker to collect fuel from the harvester, the harvester would still need the refuelling system as it is the 'tanker' in this situation. The refuelling system on the harvester also means that any ship can refuel at a harvester, not just tankers.

Thanks the first sentence was new to me

follow up question: will the player still need to "flag" a ship as a tanker or will it be flagged automaticaly if it get's added a refuelling system as only this would make the ship a tanker and every ship with this would be a tanker?

[Steve Walmsley]

follow up question: will the player still need to "flag" a ship as a tanker or will it be flagged automaticaly if it get's added a refuelling system as only this would make the ship a tanker and every ship with this would be a tanker?

They are still separate at the moment, but that is a good point. Unless there are situation where a player might not want a ship flagged as a tanker (which I can't think of right now), I should probably remove the checkbox and just assign the tanker flag automatically.

[Scandinavian]

When transferring fuel to a colony, you need a refuelling system on the delivery ship and the colony needs a refuelling station or spaceport. You can transfer to a ship using a refuelling system (or hub, or station) and the target ship does not require any special equipment. If you send a tanker to collect fuel from the harvester, the harvester would still need the refuelling system as it is the 'tanker' in this situation. The refuelling system on the harvester also means that any ship can refuel at a harvester, not just tankers.

It seems a little strange to not allow full spaceports to unload fuel. I get why we'll want to make transfers one-way for the supply depots and underway replenishment systems, but it seems strange that a vessel built for moving fuel between established hubs would necessarily require the ability to perform underway refueling. Not suspension of disbelief breaking or anything, but strange.

[Steve Walmsley]

It seems a little strange to not allow full spaceports to unload fuel. I get why we'll want to make transfers one-way for the supply depots and underway replenishment systems, but it seems strange that a vessel built for moving fuel between established hubs would necessarily require the ability to perform underway refueling. Not suspension of disbelief breaking or anything, but strange.

The refuelling system isn't for underway - it is for all refuelling. If you want to refuel from a stationary tanker or base, it still needs a refuelling system (or a refuelling hub).

It's a little like a petrol (gas) station. Ideal for fuelling cars but not designed to remove fuel from the cars. When a petrol tanker turns up to add more fuel to the petrol station, the tanker pumps the fuel into the underground tanks - the station doesn't extract the fuel from the tanker.

[Jovus]

They are still separate at the moment, but that is a good point. Unless there are situation where a player might not want a ship flagged as a tanker (which I can't think of right now), I should probably remove the checkbox and just assign the tanker flag automatically.

I'd suggest (since it sounds like the checkbox etc are already in place) you should just leave it there and allow players to toggle it, but if someone adds a refueling system to a ship, turn it on automatically, and if someone takes all those systems off, toggle it off automatically.

If, as I suppose, the checkbox is already built and linked up as before, this seems both easier and a good way to avoid accidentally removing edge use cases. (Maybe, for example, someone wants to build a tanker that is huge and carries a lot of fuel itself, but relies on a small swarm of 'fuel movers' that themselves have 2 sets of refueling gear - one to connect to Big Momma, one to connect to the dry ship. I dunno.)

You can then sweep through and remove it later if it turns out nobody's using it.

[QuakeIV]

It seems a little strange to not allow full spaceports to unload fuel. I get why we'll want to make transfers one-way for the supply depots and underway replenishment systems, but it seems strange that a vessel built for moving fuel between established hubs would necessarily require the ability to perform underway refueling. Not suspension of disbelief breaking or anything, but strange.

The refuelling system isn't for underway - it is for all refuelling. If you want to refuel from a stationary tanker or base, it still needs a refuelling system (or a refuelling hub).

It's a little like a petrol (gas) station. Ideal for fuelling cars but not designed to remove fuel from the cars. When a petrol tanker turns up to add more fuel to the petrol station, the tanker pumps the fuel into the underground tanks - the station doesn't extract the fuel from the tanker.

Thats not totally true, generally fuel trucks have fairly weak pumps and larger scale fuel depos will actually hook up a much more powerful pump to drain the truck quicker so that they can get on to draining the next truck.

[King-Salomon]

A question about the Spaceport..

ships bigger than 500t can't land on a planet - so I thought a Spaceport (in technobable not coding) might be an orbital "Spacestation" and not a ground based installation...

but is seems I am wrong as it can be destroyed by Planetary Bombardment as collateral damage with a target-size of 1000 (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg107703#msg107703)...

as a spaceport deals with trading, resupply, refuel etc of big ships - shouldn't it be in some kind of "orbit" like a shipyard instead than being on the ground were the spaceships could not reach it - at least in terms of targeting it in space combat and being not able to target/destroy in land combat?

[Steve Walmsley]

A question about the Spaceport..

ships bigger than 500t can't land on a planet - so I thought a Spaceport (in technobable not coding) might be an orbital "Spacestation" and not a ground based installation...

but is seems I am wrong as it can be destroyed by Planetary Bombardment as collateral damage with a target-size of 1000 (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg107703#msg107703)...

as a spaceport deals with trading, resupply, refuel etc of big ships - shouldn't it be in some kind of "orbit" like a shipyard instead than being on the ground were the spaceships could not reach it - at least in terms of targeting it in space combat and being not able to target/destroy in land combat?

The spaceport is ground based but provides ground-to-orbit transfer (cargo shuttles, etc.). You could effectively build a spaceport in orbit though, using refuelling hub, an ordnance transfer hub and (when I get around to adding it) a cargo transfer hub). In fact, you could build that spaceport in deep space.

[sloanjh (OP)]

In fact, you could build that spaceport in deep space.

Just be prepared for the first four of them to suffer unpleasant mishaps

John