And the results are in!
I won't go over the results in detail - if you want to see the numbers yourself, then you can here: https://docs. google. com/forms/d/1UMt2rpgdtejuuQRypXv-52wc074ggVGEuWZb-yTK7x0/viewanalytics
Instead, I'll be going over some notable observations and my personal thoughts on Aurora.
1. Everybody likes the game. I wasn't surprised by this since I've long felt that - while Aurora has a lot to offer as a story generator - if you don't enjoy the game, you're not going to suffer through it to create a story. I was surprised that there were as many people as there were that "only" play for the game itself though.
2. The features that most respondents considered "integral" to Aurora were exploration, development of the empire, designing custom ships/technologies, and fleet combat - literally the 4Xs! The features respondents considered the least "integral" to Aurora were managing administrators, planetary archeology, ground combat, and diplomacy. (I'm keeping in mind that people are liable to consider this question to mean "What do you
like in Aurora" instead of "What do you think
defines Aurora," and I'd recommend you do too!)
3. Respondents expressing interest in further automation of the game were in the minority, with the exception of administrator assignments (~60%) and ground unit maintenance (50%).
4. 1/3rd of the respondents said that they enjoyed playing as multiple empires! I was surprised, but happy to see I wasn't the only one
. The majority of respondents reported that they enjoyed setting individual/by-class names for ships and (despite admins' heretofore unpopularity) over half of respondents answered that they do like having named officers!
5. While most proposed features received lukewarm response, there was some notable appreciation for the notion of multi-species empires and inter-empire alliances.
6. The most common requested features fell into the categories of better UI and automation. (There were plenty of great responses in there though, thank you to those who took the time to write in detail. )
I'll try now to reply
to the replies, or at least comment further on them. Mandatory
"This is just, like, my opinion, man. "1. Managing the mineral economy is absolutely integral to Aurora. Your starter system will run out of critical materials very quickly, and after that it's basically a race to keep finding more, higher value planets close to population centers. If you're not fighting aliens, you're probably on that mineral grind (even if you don't think you are. ) Furthermore, I'm split on the best way, if at all, to automate this aspect of the game. Personally, the part of mineral management I dislike the most is moving asteroid miners around. Having to create a colony on the planet and then put miners there is just a pain.
2. Long-term terraforming makes planets matter. Within a couple hours of a Stellaris campaign I probably can't keep my planets straight. The only thing that I really care about later on is which planet has the starbase with all the shipyards on it. In Aurora, you might come across 10 times as many planets, but only actually care about and manage 1/10th the planets you would in Stellaris. The actual mechanics of terraforming are interesting, but it's the knock-on effects that really matter to the gameplay, and I vastly prefer Aurora's method.
3. Ship maintenance and logistics are often annoying to deal with, but also heavily influence wartime strategy. A ship that cannot reach the enemy might as well be kept surface side as a gun battery, and when war comes knocking at your door, you usually have to fight with what you have ready, not what's in the shipyard or undergoing maintenance. The US, for example, has as many carriers as it does so that the USN can keep a minimum deployed without sacrificing either operational readiness or sane maintenance schedules.
4. Incremental research is the least interesting way to set up a research system, and the smaller the increments are the less interesting it is. It might be more
realistic, and there are some cases in Aurora's research tree where significant advances in a branch opens up new options, but generally I don't find it that compelling. I think the only time I do get excited about research is when I unlock a new generator/engine type because nuclear fusion is cool and I like seeing the tech progression. An extra 25% production cap a month is useful but boring, a breakthrough in energy technology is cool. With all that said, I haven't though through a good replacement for Aurora's tech progression and it is completely serviceable as it is.
5. Archeology is dope, but the rewards suck and I think that's why people are kind of ambivalent about it. The essentials for something cool are already there - Aurora doesn't have scripted CYOA sequences like Stellaris, instead the game just says, "Hey, there's some ruins here. Wanna check them out?" And then you decide how much you want to invest into recovering the stuff, and there's even a chance for !FUN! stuff to come out of the ruins and say "Hi" to your poor Engineer Corps. I think cranking up the risk and reward factors on dig sites would make them far more exciting to stumble across.
6. Administrators are basically invisible legwork for a player uninterested in creating a "story" for their campaign. If the player is following or creating a narrative of some form or another, then administrators still only really offer a randomized name to assign to a character that is ultimately doomed to be outlived by the general story. I wouldn't remove them since I myself have turned Aurora-admins into characters in AARs, but I find their contributions to the gameplay. . . lacking. I don't necessarily think that making them more important is the right call either; scientists and leaders are way more important in Stellaris and I find them even less compelling there.
7. Complexity != Micro. I was happy that MandaloreGaming made a review of Aurora, but I kind of feel like someone who is really into the game needs to make a follow up/response. Aurora is complex, but a lot of it is good complexity! Being able to design your own class of ship down to the exact size and resolution of its infrared sensors is complex, but I don't find it tedious at all. I want that level of customization if not more. But once the ship is designed, I don't have to worry about supply chain issues or anything like that. The ship is just a ship that has certain capabilities and constraints. To me, "Micro" has a bit of a negative connotation, and while in some cases it can be great ("I only want to use one fighter to go and flush out the enemy with its active sensors, and then the rest of my fleet fires a single salvo of missiles to conserve ammo!") it can also be - and often is - synonymous with "tedium. " Aurora does have a lot of tedium, but I think it's important not to conflate the two.
8. Ground combat needs love. I figured I'd get a lot of negative feedback on how important or how much people enjoyed ground combat, but I was disheartened by how many said it should be completely automated. As another has mentioned, ground combat and design in AuroraC# has "had a lot of detail added for not much gain. " I love the detail; just as with a ship I can go and draw out the exact size and composition of an army, complete with MLRS vehicles and TMLs, MBTs, IFVs, scouts, snipers, MANPAD and ATGM teams, SPGs, you name it. And, what do you know, a balanced army works! . . . Actually, someone already calculated the optimal strategy is just a bajillion guys with machine guns, and now the best way to replenish my fancy army is to build a copy of it and cannibalize the copy, and if I want to update its equipment then I have to add all the equipment to a series. . . Oh no.
It just became tedium. That being said, I don't think the answer is to dumb down the ground combat. I'm going to make Stellaris my punching bag again - I hate ground invasions there. I always forget that I need to go build some armies, then wait for them to get over to the planet that needs some "liberating," and then I watch some circles turn red and its over. I think what Aurora
needs is some quality of life improvements for army maintenance and modernization, and I think Aurora could
benefit from a more involved tactical-level decision making process for ground combat. I'd be happy with it as it is + QoL changes, but even some simple strategy could go a long way.
9. Large scale space combat needs attention. Aurora does space combat better than any grand strategy game out there, and better than a fair few tactical space strategy games too. However, I often find myself designing ships not around what I need or want, but around what is easiest to control with Aurora's fleet management system. Carriers, for example, are a pain in the backside to setup and deploy, even if they are incredibly useful. Missile ships are fun and one of the few visually interesting parts of the game, but assigning missiles to launchers and launchers to fire controls and fire controls to targets gets very cumbersome as the ships and fleets get larger, all the more so if you want to conserve ammunition! Considering how much of the game is spent designing warships and using them to fight, having such limited control over their operation feels like an oversight. It's one of those cases where more options and more complexity - even in the UI! - would lead to less micro/tedium.
And on that note, I'll get to the core of my thoughts on Aurora.
Aurora is not a 4x game, it is a naval sim built on top of a relatively simple empire manager. 4x games don't ask you to worry about missile colliers and tankers, nor do they inform you that half your population is locked up in the service industry. Combat in most 4x titles, in fact combat in many
space strategy titles involves clicking on your ship and right clicking on the enemy ship. Can you imagine trying to fit sensor ranges and ELINT into Stellaris? What about trying to cram the missile designer into Sins of a Solar Empire? With that assertion in mind, when I think about how to improve on Aurora's formula, my mind jumps to something akin to CMANO laid over an interstellar nation simulator - and the necessary level of control that would come as a result. It would be, without a doubt, the most nerdy, niche thing to ever be made, but I genuinely think it would play to Aurora's strengths. Ideally, combat would become analogous to blue-navy doctrine, complete with true ELINT and passive target tracking, anti-radiation weaponry, realistic jamming, a greater emphasis on stealth and evasion; the whole nine yards. Aurora is
so close to this already; it hurts that it hasn't quite made the last hurdle. As many respondents mentioned, expanded civilian economy, industry, influence and activity, and even political will would go a long ways to making the empire feel more alive, interactive, and important. All in all, I don't think my vision is that different from Aurora as it is now, with the exception of the relative focus on "storytelling. " I won't try to pick Steve's brain too much as I haven't read or used the forums until now, but I have heard before that this project wasn't really about making the world's best 4x game with a super-duper detailed and semi-realistic space combat layer, but instead creating something to assist in telling stories. I myself have found more enjoyment playing "against myself" to create a story than any other kind of campaign. (I have a couple docs with tens of thousands of words of world building and story events, complete with daring Doolitle-style raids, mysteries, tragedies, heroic actions, and political dramas that developed completely organically over the campaign. )
While I believe that focusing on the simulation aspects of Aurora would result in an objective improvement of its core gameplay, I remain concerned that that aspect of Aurora would be lost in the enhanced level of detail. Perhaps it's unfounded? Maybe it would lead to more interesting, unexpected developments for both those interested in the game and those interested in storycrafting. Either way, it's been on my mind for some time now, and I wanted to share these ideas and get feedback from the wider community.
Cheers!