Aurora 4x

New Players => The Academy => Topic started by: Starkiller on April 02, 2008, 10:33:29 PM

Title: Next Dumb Question. :)
Post by: Starkiller on April 02, 2008, 10:33:29 PM
I know how to create and work with a single empire, thanks to the
tutorials. Now, how would I do a multiplayer hotseat game? I'd like
to get a few other interstellar Powers up an running so the Imperium
has someone to run into, but I'd like them to be player races and not
NPRs. So far as I have been able to see, You can only do races in areas
you've already found. Is there a way to start, say, four Imperiums right
at the start, in different areas, so they don't know of each other's
presence?

Eric
Title: Re: Next Dumb Question. :)
Post by: Erik L on April 02, 2008, 10:39:24 PM
Quote from: "Starkiller"
I know how to create and work with a single empire, thanks to the
tutorials. Now, how would I do a multiplayer hotseat game? I'd like
to get a few other interstellar Powers up an running so the Imperium
has someone to run into, but I'd like them to be player races and not
NPRs. So far as I have been able to see, You can only do races in areas
you've already found. Is there a way to start, say, four Imperiums right
at the start, in different areas, so they don't know of each other's
presence?

Eric


Yes.

For each, you'll need to set the default race to "SM Race", then generate a system until you have a habitable planet. Then click the planet and "Create Empire". With a default of 1000 systems, chances are pretty slim that any of the initial systems will be congruent.

Of course, since Aurora is Paused Real Time, instead of Turn based, you'll have to agree between each player what an acceptable time increment is.
Title:
Post by: Starkiller on April 02, 2008, 11:58:54 PM
How would you do that? When I go to the game menu to select 'SM
Default Race', the Imperium is the only one there. Is this something
that needed to be set right at the game setup?

Eric
Title:
Post by: Starkiller on April 03, 2008, 12:29:22 AM
I got it! You need to generate a system with a suitable planet first, then
create Empire, and then select the new race as Default. Sure takes a lot
of tries to get a habitable planet though. Another curiosity, is that unless
you remember to delete unsuitable generated systems, they will
appear on top of each other on the galactic map.

Eric
Title:
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 03, 2008, 05:37:24 AM
Quote from: "Starkiller"
I got it! You need to generate a system with a suitable planet first, then create Empire, and then select the new race as Default. Sure takes a lot of tries to get a habitable planet though.
Bear in mind that as the environmental tolerances of a race are based on the planet on which you create it, any world with an oxygen atmosphere is going to be ideal. For example, if the temperature is -60, the gravity 2.5G and the atmosphere has only 0.05 atm of oxygen then those will be the ideal conditions for the race you create and every other planet will be judged according to those criteria when you view the universe through the eyes of that race. Different races can find completely different planets ideal and may not even be able to create colonies on worlds that are ideal to other races.

However, if you need a planet with a particular atmosphere then there is a shortcut, although its not exactly intuitive :). Add a colony to a planet with suitable gravity then enter SM mode and go into the Environment tab of the economics window for that colony. The SM Set Atm button allows you to set up the atmosphere for the planet.

Quote
Another curiosity, is that unless you remember to delete unsuitable generated systems, they will appear on top of each other on the galactic map.

New systems always appear just below and to the right of the system to which they connect, or the system you were viewing when you manually generated a system. You can drag and drop them on the galactic map though to lay out the map howevere you like. Hold shift and drag the mouse for the basic drag-drop and also check out the help sidebar which explains how to multi-select and drag.

Steve
Title:
Post by: Starkiller on April 03, 2008, 09:30:59 AM
OK, I have the second player set up, but a problem has shown up.
The second player cannot see the first player's systems, but the first
player can see the second player's system, even with SM mode off.

Now, I created the second race the same way you would do an NPR.
Is there a way to keep new player races from being seen by the first
player? I've obviously done something incorrectly. :)

Eric

PS: Thanks for the info, Steve, that should simplify things.
Title:
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 03, 2008, 11:41:39 AM
Quote from: "Starkiller"
OK, I have the second player set up, but a problem has shown up.
The second player cannot see the first player's systems, but the first
player can see the second player's system, even with SM mode off.

Now, I created the second race the same way you would do an NPR.
Is there a way to keep new player races from being seen by the first
player? I've obviously done something incorrectly. :)

If you create a second race in a system generated by the first race then that first race is going to be able to see that system. The ideal way to create multiple starting players that start in different systems is to let the game create an SM race at the start and use that race to create all the starting systems and races. If you are already in a game without an SM race and you want to create systems that can't be seen by existing players, the best way is to create a temporary race, use it to generate the systems of all the additional players and then delete the temporary race.

Steve
Title:
Post by: Starkiller on April 05, 2008, 02:30:48 PM
Ok, that worked well. Thanks, Steve.

Eric
Title:
Post by: simon on August 26, 2008, 09:02:02 AM
How stop my GDP from spin-diving ? Just learning the strings but before i can expand beyond the home world GDP heads for the floor despite increasing racial wealth, and a planetwide fall in unemployment. This seems to somehow coupled to political stability. P.S my goverment is a kind and benevolent   military dictatorship(':evil:') should i change my ways or can GU be used to stabalize the situation.
Title:
Post by: SteveAlt on August 26, 2008, 09:19:56 AM
Quote from: "simon"
How stop my GDP from spin-diving ? Just learning the strings but before i can expand beyond the home world GDP heads for the floor despite increasing racial wealth, and a planetwide fall in unemployment. This seems to somehow coupled to political stability. P.S my goverment is a kind and benevolent   military dictatorship(':evil:') should i change my ways or can GU be used to stabalize the situation.

There can be several reasons but its often a lack of military units in the system. If you look at the bottom left of the summary panel for the population there will be a requested protection level and an actual protection level. If actual is less than requested, the population won't feel they are adequately protected. Unrest will increase and political stability will fall.

The level of protection provided by a ship or PDC is measured by its PPV (Planetary Protection Value) rating, which is found at the end of the second line of the class summary.

Steve
Title:
Post by: Erik L on August 26, 2008, 09:21:50 AM
Quote from: "simon"
How stop my GDP from spin-diving ? Just learning the strings but before i can expand beyond the home world GDP heads for the floor despite increasing racial wealth, and a planetwide fall in unemployment. This seems to somehow coupled to political stability. P.S my goverment is a kind and benevolent   military dictatorship(':evil:') should i change my ways or can GU be used to stabalize the situation.


Do you have enough protection? The civs want to feel safe, so they ask for military protection. I believe this kicks in around 10m pop and increases as the pop does. Ships in system, PDCs and ground units provide the needed protection.

On the summary screen, bottom of the first column will be two entries, Protection Requested, and Protection Provided (something like that). If Requested is higher than Provided, unrest grows and grows fast.
Title: Nomadic empire
Post by: simon on August 26, 2008, 10:36:37 AM
Is it possible to move all needed files into a portable drive (Stick drive/ipod) so you plug-in to a computer and continue the struggle
':?' . PS storage space is aplenty
Title: Re: Nomadic empire
Post by: Erik L on August 26, 2008, 10:48:11 AM
Quote from: "simon"
Is it possible to move all needed files into a portable drive (Stick drive/ipod) so you plug-in to a computer and continue the struggle
':?' . PS storage space is aplenty


All you truly need is the stevefire.mdb. Of course you need Aurora installed on the other computer(s). Installing to a flash drive is doable, but there are registry settings that the install performs that without, Aurora may not function correctly, if at all.
Title: Re: Next Dumb Question. :)
Post by: Randy on December 11, 2008, 04:14:08 PM
Eric wrote:
Quote from: "Erik"
All you truly need is the stevefire.mdb. Of course you need Aurora installed on the other computer(s). Installing to a flash drive is doable, but there are registry settings that the install performs that without, Aurora may not function correctly, if at all.

And even these things could be cleaned up if Aurora was done in .Net  :wink:
Title: Re: Next Dumb Question. :)
Post by: Erik L on December 11, 2008, 06:45:48 PM
Quote from: "Randy"
Eric wrote:
Quote from: "Erik"
All you truly need is the stevefire.mdb. Of course you need Aurora installed on the other computer(s). Installing to a flash drive is doable, but there are registry settings that the install performs that without, Aurora may not function correctly, if at all.

And even these things could be cleaned up if Aurora was done in .Net  :wink:

I asked Steve about that once, and he replied that he knows VB6, and would rather keep putting out versions than learning a new IDE and such.
Title: Re: Next Dumb Question. :)
Post by: Steve Walmsley on December 14, 2008, 08:38:19 AM
Quote from: "Randy"
Eric wrote:
Quote from: "Erik"
All you truly need is the stevefire.mdb. Of course you need Aurora installed on the other computer(s). Installing to a flash drive is doable, but there are registry settings that the install performs that without, Aurora may not function correctly, if at all.

And even these things could be cleaned up if Aurora was done in .Net  :)

Trying to change it now would be a major undertaking

Steve
Title: Re: Next Dumb Question. :)
Post by: Haegan2005 on January 03, 2009, 12:47:05 PM
[quote="Steve Walmsley
Unfortunately I never got around to learning .NET :)

Trying to change it now would be a major undertaking

Steve[/quote]

vb.net does have an importer for vb6 files. However, it is not nearly as good as some say it is. Even if it imports 90% of steves code correctly, the othe 10% will have him tied up for weeks tracking them down and figuring out how .net wants it coded.  This is from personal experience. To top it off the vb.net help is not as complete as VB6. VB6 just has better explainations and samples.
Title: Re: Next Dumb Question. :)
Post by: Randy on January 07, 2009, 11:59:21 AM
I guess I've had better luck with the upgrade tool - but I mostly used it to find the parts of the business logic that needed to be re-written  as opposed to any of the interface (which was completely redone...)

  Realistically, for Aurora (and SA), a complete re-write from the ground up would allow many improvements, and allow the OO nature of .Net to be exploited.

  Problem is, that means Steve would spend a lot of time just to get where he currently is :-(

  And that would seriously take away from the fun factor in building aurora at present.