Aurora 4x
Fiction => C# Test Campaigns => Steve's Fiction => Aurora => The Suns Never Set => Topic started by: db48x on March 24, 2019, 04:04:43 AM
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How did you manage to come up with the best steam-punk engine name I've ever seen? "Parsons PN-300 Triple Expansion Ion Drive" is amazing.
For anyone who doesn't know, a triple-expansion steam engine had three (huge) pistons, each of which used the steam from the previous piston. High-pressure steam from the boilers drove the first piston, then the somewhat lower-pressure steam from that drove the second, then the third was driven by steam that was nearly down to atmospheric pressure. Between the three they could extract the majority of the energy from the steam, making these engines quite efficient. The big ones were the size of your house.
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But... Ion Drive?.. Triple Expansion?
What is it? There is some lack of correspondence, as for me.
P.S.
"Have you heard the auxetophone? It is to be hoped not. All Mr. Parsons' Ion Drives will be wanted to take long-suffering humanity out of earshot of his diabolical invention" :D
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(https://i.pinimg.com/236x/03/eb/fb/03ebfbf38d67b88e3ccd5b892188c872--a-hero-heroes.jpg)
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How did you manage to come up with the best steam-punk engine name I've ever seen? "Parsons PN-300 Triple Expansion Ion Drive" is amazing.
For anyone who doesn't know, a triple-expansion steam engine had three (huge) pistons, each of which used the steam from the previous piston. High-pressure steam from the boilers drove the first piston, then the somewhat lower-pressure steam from that drove the second, then the third was driven by steam that was nearly down to atmospheric pressure. Between the three they could extract the majority of the energy from the steam, making these engines quite efficient. The big ones were the size of your house.
Charles Parsons invented the compound steam turbine and the real life 1890s Royal Sovereign class (and other ships of the same period) used triple expansion steam engines. As I was designing the engine, the name just leapt out at me :)
BTW, interesting side note. There have been seven Royal Navy ships named Royal Sovereign, of which the above is the sixth. The first served from 1660 until 1697, which included the reign of James II, the last catholic monarch of England, and the period when parliament become dominant over the crown. The third Royal Sovereign was a 100-gun first rate ship of the line which served as the flagship of Admiral Collingwood at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The seventh, a Revenge class battleship launched in 1915, was transferred to the Soviet Union in 1944 and served as the Arkhangelsk until 1949. Naval history is fascinating :)
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This is great! The A.I appears to be functioning more or less as intended, at least tactically. I love the whole late 1800s shtick, too, and am eagerly awaiting some... "Forceful uplifting" of conquered aliens.
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Lovely AAR; I appreciate the theme especially as a huge sea nerd. As I was reading through it, a couple things struck me that I'd like to ask questions about.
First, why is there a Death Star icon in Sol? Is this because Sol is the capital of the empire and you're using the Star Wars theme? I don't think I've noticed capital marking before, if so, though possibly I just missed an option somewhere.
Second, did you tweak the homeworld mineral generation algorithm? Earth looks pretty rich to my eyes. If not, I guess you just got lucky, or my estimate's out of whack.
Third, is system gen more likely to give 2.00 colony cost worlds now? Seems like you have a lot of them, when usually, especially with Real Stars, they're somewhat rare. I know you basically redid how habitability and terraforming work, so maybe a side effect is to make candidates more common?
Finally, a proposal: First Naval Lord I take to be a translation to space of First Sea Lord; I propose instead First Space Lord to keep the sibilance and the syllables.
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Lovely AAR; I appreciate the theme especially as a huge sea nerd. As I was reading through it, a couple things struck me that I'd like to ask questions about.
First, why is there a Death Star icon in Sol? Is this because Sol is the capital of the empire and you're using the Star Wars theme? I don't think I've noticed capital marking before, if so, though possibly I just missed an option somewhere.
Second, did you tweak the homeworld mineral generation algorithm? Earth looks pretty rich to my eyes. If not, I guess you just got lucky, or my estimate's out of whack.
Third, is system gen more likely to give 2.00 colony cost worlds now? Seems like you have a lot of them, when usually, especially with Real Stars, they're somewhat rare. I know you basically redid how habitability and terraforming work, so maybe a side effect is to make candidates more common?
Finally, a proposal: First Naval Lord I take to be a translation to space of First Sea Lord; I propose instead First Space Lord to keep the sibilance and the syllables.
1) Each race has a 'Station' icon that is used to denote the presence of shipyards
2) Home world is normal random generation. Just lucky on this one.
3) Colony 2.00 is more likely due to tide-locked worlds as their temperature cost and population capacity are both divided by 5.
4) First Naval Lord was the term in use at the time. First Naval Lord was changed to First Sea Lord in 1904.
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I love the Victorian/Edwardian uplift setting (SPACE:1889, Wooden Ships and Iron Men, Martian Tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs, etc.), and am thrilled to see you doing one again. I am sad, though, that the Royal Sovereign is primarily armed with torpedo tubes (yes, she had seven) and is completely lacking guns (I was hoping for 2x2 big guns, 10 small ones, and 22 PD/CIWS).
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The more compact AAR style is nice. Honestly given how thoroughly routine the early game tends to be it's a major plus. Especially since it must cut down writing time. Then again it might just be an impression. As for the ships, I have to say that I rather expected magnificent ships of the line (or of the wall) with bristling broadside guns and massed PD. After all, shouldn't the royal navy not be afraid to get close and personal ?
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The more compact AAR style is nice. Honestly given how thoroughly routine the early game tends to be it's a major plus. Especially since it must cut down writing time. Then again it might just be an impression. As for the ships, I have to say that I rather expected magnificent ships of the line (or of the wall) with bristling broadside guns and massed PD. After all, shouldn't the royal navy not be afraid to get close and personal ?
Compact style was intended. As you say, going through every jump point exploration can get tedious after a while. I thought it was better to cover it in summary and concentrate on the action.
I did consider going energy-only, but decided to go with 'torpedo launchers' as the big guns. That might change, depending on how things go.
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4) First Naval Lord was the term in use at the time. First Naval Lord was changed to First Sea Lord in 1904.
I stand corrected. If this AAR lasts long enough, will you switch? ;D
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Well, Sea Lord or Naval Lord, but Good Lord, is there any time machine was developed by Admiralty, when they has named those asteroids and comets?!
("New civilian mining colonies were founded on the asteroid 2005 TB190 and the comet Herschel – Rigollet".)
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Well, Sea Lord or Naval Lord, but Good Lord, is there any time machine was developed by Admiralty, when they has named those asteroids and comets?!
("New civilian mining colonies were founded on the asteroid 2005 TB190 and the comet Herschel – Rigollet".)
I've been renaming stars/systems that had 20th century names but I really couldn't be bothered to go through all the asteroids and comets :)
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The front being on the far side of two planetless jump points seems like this might be a golden opportunity for the new deep space fleet bases to shine. Once the empire has more time to prepare, at least.
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is there any time machine was developed by Admiralty, when they has named those asteroids and comets?!
("New civilian mining colonies were founded on the asteroid 2005 TB190 and the comet Herschel – Rigollet".)
Simple stupid plausibility skin that breaks down if you look at it too hard but works if you squint and move on: Royal Society astronomers are naming small bodies based on a projective scheme that attempts to classify them based on when they would have been discovered without the TNE revolution.
As for comets named after inappropriate people, that's simple: you just have the referent incorrect. That's not Roger Rigollet from 1939; that's Pierre Friedrich Rigollet, a still-living famous Alsatian astronomer who was never born in our timeline.
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Are the Ophidians the new Star Swarm? Because if so I like the new shtick. Do they still reproduce with eggs, though?
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Are the Ophidians the new Star Swarm? Because if so I like the new shtick. Do they still reproduce with eggs, though?
Yes, they are the Swarm. They no longer use eggs specifically, but the general idea is still the same. They have a new concept called Bio-energy, which they gain from salvaging wrecks and intact ships and from mining. Hive ships use that bio-energy to produce new swarm ships.
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Well that was certainly an eventful year! Loved the fact that the small squadron used the jump point mechanics to avoid the missiles and also decided on not attacking your survey vessel once the missiles were detected. Looks like combat is going to be significantly more interesting and challenging which is great.
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I am super hyped on the swarm boarders, are they replenished in with the same Bio-Energy mechanic? Is there a reason that life pods and their soft nougaty center are not used as well?
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I am super hyped on the swarm boarders, are they replenished in with the same Bio-Energy mechanic? Is there a reason that life pods and their soft nougaty center are not used as well?
The Hive Ships turn the empty boarding FACs back into Bio-energy (they salvage their own ships) and then use that energy to produce whatever is needed, including new boarding FACs. The Swarm is only interested in TNEs, so they ignore the life pods.
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The naming of the new dimension as the "aether" would probably get confusing as the luminiferous aether was still the prevailing theory for the propagation of light during this time. lol.
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Am I missing something, or has Steve not posted the design of the Majestic-class battleships -- other than the blurb "an enlarged version of the Royal Sovereign with a displacement of 18,750 tons?"
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Good grief, those slimy Ophidian monstrosities seem waaaay more vicious than previous incarnations. Can you give some details of the acid weapons - does the residual effect have limited duration, or are there ways to counter it once hit? Also cool to see the AI using EM weapons.
You mentioned they gain bioenergy via mining - do they have installations or ground forces, or is this done via asteroid mining modules?
Definitely looking forward to this!
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Will the Swarm be jump capable
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Will the Swarm be jump capable
An option for it would indeed be nice. It'd make for an interesting challenge. Then again it might impede on the role the extra galactic invaders are supposed to fulfil.
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Steve mentioned in the changes discussion thread that the Swarm had gravsurvey ships, so I would assume they are jump capable. They already (slowly) expand in VB6, so it wouldn't be a huge change.
Edit: Just realized that the mentioned post was made after DEEPenergy's question, so they probably already saw it.
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Fascinating AAR. I would love to read a new part now! :)
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Unfortunately, Steve has moved on from this campaign. You can follo his new one, however
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Has Steve ever finished a campaign? Not sarcastic, just curious.
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Has Steve ever finished a campaign? Not sarcastic, just curious.
Well, define "finish". Finishing an Aurora campaign can mean a lot of things, and depending on definition might not actually be possible. If I understand you correctly though, I don't think that he has finished one. He usually (afaik, I could be wrong) uses them to test out new features and bugtest, and moves on to a new campaign when the current one no longer lets him test what he wants to. I think.
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Yes, that is what I meant. Thank you.
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The only Aurora campaign I can think of that actually had a definite conclusion is Kurt's Six Powers Campaign. Haji's From the Ashes ended prematurely, but he gave a pretty detailed plan of how he would have wanted to proceed and ultimately end. There might be some others, especially since I don't know of many outside of these forums. Aurora really isn't made to force an ending to a game if the player doesn't have one planned out. Unless you straight out lose (which is pretty rare for an experienced player), it can and will go on until the game gets so slow you give up.
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I see no ongoing C# campaign?
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I see no ongoing C# campaign?
See: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?board=264.0
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Has Steve ever finished a campaign? Not sarcastic, just curious.
If I remember correctly, the Solarian Empires (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?board=198.0) campaign came to a satisfying close. The world wasn't "done", but the interesting threads were pretty much resolved.