Some basic gameplay questions.

[Starkiller (OP)]

Hi all.
As I've just started checking Aurora out, and going through the four
tutorials, I have a couple of questions. First, does a ship require a Jump
Drive to go through a Warp Point? I ask because in the Tutorial on ship
creation, none of the warships he designed, had a Jump Drive.

Second, what is required to start a colony? I'm sure it's more than just
plunking people down on a decent planet.

Eric

[vergeraiders]

Yes you need a jump drive (or a jump gate) to transit a jump point.
However ships with a jump drive can 'escort' a minimum of 2 other ships at a time through a JP as long as the other ships are smaller than or the same size as the jump ship (and the jump drive).

Yes you can jut plunk down colonists on a planet. However if the coloniztion cost is greater than 0 they will start to die without infrastructure. So for most planets infrastructure and colonists are needed.
Of course that won't do much other than grow colonists.

No orders are needed for archeology ot cybernetic teams, but you do need to make a colony first.

Mike

[Starkiller (OP)]

Thanks. Aurora is fairly complex, and while I DO love complex, it IS
rather confusing without documentation. I hope some docs will be
written once Steve gets the program pretty much where he wants
it.

Eric

[MWadwell]

Thanks. Aurora is fairly complex, and while I DO love complex, it IS
rather confusing without documentation. I hope some docs will be
written once Steve gets the program pretty much where he wants
it.

Eric

LOL

One of Steve's good points is that he is a tinkerer - and this means that Aurora will never be "where he wants it" (as Steve keeps wanting to add in new and cool features....)

[Erik L]

Thanks. Aurora is fairly complex, and while I DO love complex, it IS
rather confusing without documentation. I hope some docs will be
written once Steve gets the program pretty much where he wants
it.

Eric

Closest thing we've got to documentation are the Mechanics and Academy forums.

[jfelten]

Basic question:  For officers, one of their areas is research bonus, but it has specific research types in parenthesis afterward.  My question is what is the significance of that?  Are those the only areas of research the officer gives benefit to, or are those areas he is extra good at, and if so, what is the additional bonus for those areas?  I'm hoping the latter as otherwise it would be royal pain to keep reassigning different officers every time a different research project is started.

[Father Tim]

Those are the areas the officer is extra good at, doubling his bonus.

[welchbloke]

Another basic question:
Am I correct in assuming that you cannot transport terraforming installations?  The only options I can see are build a ship with terraforming module and send to planet in question or build terraforming installation on planet (this is only viable once you have a big enough population with sufficent contruction factories etc).

[Father Tim]

That is correct.  There have been a couple debates about transporting planetary TIs, generally resulting in the opinion that the ability to do so would render terraforming ships far less useful, andthat would make the game less fun.  It seems to be about a 60-40 split against moving TIs though, so make you opinion heard.

[welchbloke]

Father Tim wrote:
That is correct. There have been a couple debates about transporting planetary TIs, generally resulting in the opinion that the ability to do so would render terraforming ships far less useful, andthat would make the game less fun. It seems to be about a 60-40 split against moving TIs though, so make you opinion heard.

Now that I know I hadn't missed anything, I'm comfortable with not being able to transport TIs.  I can see the argument about terraforming ships losing their usefulness and I agree with it.

[jfelten]

Another probably simple question.  What does it take to be able to identify the civilian ships when they appear?  For a good while the game treated them like unknown aliens.  I think later it learned that they were just civilian ships.  The oddball thing is that those civilian ships were built right there at my homeworld.  I should certainly be able to identify them.  Even within the game system, I should have had excellent opportunities to scan them by the planetary, home fleet, PDC's, etc. sensors at short range when they first left the HW.

[Erik L]

Another probably simple question.  What does it take to be able to identify the civilian ships when they appear?  For a good while the game treated them like unknown aliens.  I think later it learned that they were just civilian ships.  The oddball thing is that those civilian ships were built right there at my homeworld.  I should certainly be able to identify them.  Even within the game system, I should have had excellent opportunities to scan them by the planetary, home fleet, PDC's, etc. sensors at short range when they first left the HW.

Did you have active sensors on?

[welchbloke]

Eric Luken Wrote:

jfelten wrote:
Another probably simple question. What does it take to be able to identify the civilian ships when they appear? For a good while the game treated them like unknown aliens. I think later it learned that they were just civilian ships. The oddball thing is that those civilian ships were built right there at my homeworld. I should certainly be able to identify them. Even within the game system, I should have had excellent opportunities to scan them by the planetary, home fleet, PDC's, etc. sensors at short range when they first left the HW.

Did you have active sensors on?

I've had the same issue and I'm sure it is because I've not turned my active sensors on.  The next question is - how do I turn my active sensors on?

[Erik L]

Eric Luken Wrote:

jfelten wrote:
Another probably simple question. What does it take to be able to identify the civilian ships when they appear? For a good while the game treated them like unknown aliens. I think later it learned that they were just civilian ships. The oddball thing is that those civilian ships were built right there at my homeworld. I should certainly be able to identify them. Even within the game system, I should have had excellent opportunities to scan them by the planetary, home fleet, PDC's, etc. sensors at short range when they first left the HW.

Did you have active sensors on?

I've had the same issue and I'm sure it is because I've not turned my active sensors on.  The next question is - how do I turn my active sensors on?

[welchbloke]

Thanks Erik and sorry for mis-spelling your name in the last post.  What about the deep space tracking station?  Is it an active or a passive system?