Aurora 4x
VB6 Aurora => Aurora Chat => Topic started by: sublight on January 22, 2012, 06:35:24 PM
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These have been proposed before, but with the exception of games between blood relatives I can't recall ever hearing of one actual played out. Which is a shame, since I've been itching to see how Player vs Player tactics work out. To remedy this curiosity, I'm checking to see if anyone else is interested in putting together a multiplayer game. I'd be willing to act as either the SM or fill a player slot.
How would Multiplayer Aurora work?
1) As standard multi-faction, but SM password not shared and only SM advances time. Races would also be password protected, and players would temporarily change the default race from a dummy to their fraction when they take their turn.
2) The players act as the Senators and/or Fleet Admirals of their factions, and are responsible for long-term planing, development, and writing 'The Book' on Standard Operating Procedures. The SM would handle the little details like ship orders in accordance to The Book. This saves time and keeps the game moving.
3) Turn intervals would be 6-months to a year, game time, with provisions for 'Emergency counsel secessions' in responce to predefined events. Limit of 1 emergency counsel meeting for a faction specific event. If at any point over half the players have had mid-term intervention, the turn would end early and a new 6-12 month increment would start after everyone has a chance to review the situation.
4) The game file would be distributed by DropBox. I've heard people have used DropBox before for multi-machine game access, so I think that would work best for the large files. It also allows people to review there race and post new orders in any order so long as none try to update the database at the same time.
5) Players would be encouraged to write up a running report, for time-delayed publication. After all, others are probably curious how the game goes.
6) If the game enters a stale mate or is foreseen to need an early ending then invaders would get turned on for Sudden Death mode.
What would the objective be?
1) Survive.
2) Become the dominant power in terms of population, colony count, and tribute extracted from your rivals.
3) Possible something else.
Starting SetUp:
I see two possibilities:
A) '10 years later conventional' - multiple players starting on different planets of the same star system (earth/mars/venus) using conventional start plus a free extra comercial shipyard, research lab, and 10 years worth of production and research. '10 years later' seems to put races on the edge of Nuclear Thermal Drive, but not quite enough for complete warship packages.
B) Standard Trans-Newtonian start with each player in a different starting system.
Either way, a short 2-3 jump chain linkage between inhabited words would be made to ensure the game doesn't last forever.
Remaining details to be determined once/if players are found.
Anyone interested?
Example Racial SOP Book:
Hypothetical Empire Response List:
Condition #1: gravsurvey ship completes gravitation survey.
If: ship has at least 55% fuel and 75% remaining maintenance supplies
Then order ship through nearest unexplored jump point in system or adjacent system.
Else: Order ship home for overhaul and refueling.
Condition #2: Neutral ship approaches with 10 million km of home world.
SOP: Order ship to turn back, opening missile fire if it stubbornly approaches within 1 million km.
Condition #3: An opponent issues an ultimatum on any issue.
If ultimatum is an order for a survey ship to turn back
Then: Order survey vessel to new destination.
Else: Call Emergency Council Meeting (send game save for review)
Condition #4: When Sir Bob completes his research project queue
Then have Ema start research on 15cm lasers using Bob's former labs.
Condition #5: Jump Point Missile boat picket detect hostile unit.
If unit is noted as a suspected survey ship in intelligence notes:
Then: SOP: Fire single missile volleys until ship slows less than half missile boat speed. Close to finish off with point defense battery.
Else: SOP: detach one missile boat to follow hostile from 500k km range.
Condition #6: Any hostile unit, no matter how small, opens fire.
Then: Have any units in missile range return fire, and call Emergency Council Meeting (send game save for review)
Condition #7: Missile boats have less than 50% ammunition after engagement.
SOP: Dispatch missile resupply collier to bring ordinance to task group. Order collier to return to home world afterwards.
Conditions #8-#12: none at this time.
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I tried one once (as SM), but one player quickly lost interest. Real shame x.x
I'd be interested in trying to be a player though.
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There actually is one currently going, you can read about it in my fiction under Community Game II
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... I can't believe I'd never heard of yours until now.
*skims*
After a quick review of the Community Game I think I'll continue this thread's recruitment drive. Until the day when planetary maps are implemented I'm more interested in how separate-planet starts work than same-planet starts. Still, you can count me in as a new reader of the game fiction.
The original background campaign fiction associated with my current multiplayer theory is as follows:
2020: It was this year when, amidst a faltering world economy and growing nationalist rhetoric, that the third world war finally broke out. Despite the fears of mutually assured destruction, the conflict very nearly avoided weapons of mass destruction entirely, but 'nearly avoided' is small comfort in the aftermath. Perceiving an opportunity, one semi-rogue WMD armed state began launching, and when the first cities died everyone else started launching too. It was the end of an age, and many questioned if it would be the end of humanity as the biosphere shifted and the death toil mounted. For good or ill, that question too is academic, since They came.
None know where they came from, or what they were, but 'Precursor' was the descriptor that took hold. What we do know is why they came, why the intervened, and why they stayed. They came building a Jump-gate transit corridor. The intervened to rescue what they could of Earth's dying biodiversity. And they stayed to ensure stability for what ever traffic was to come.
Like parents annoyed with squabbling children, one of their first steps was to physically and bodily separate the remnants of the still skirmishing factions in the final war. Banished to Venus and Mars, the Precursors displayed impossible powers as they transmogrified the remnants and terraformed the planets to meet each-other half way. Less than a billion human and trans-humans remained, but even so humanity and her molded children both chafed and scheme against both their new emotionless masters and each-other. Once more, the Precursors stepped in.
In 2040, as part of an ultimatum before a regrettable culture destroying mind wiping reeducation, the Precursors opened a dimensional rift to show the heights humanity ought to have achieved. It was then that humanity learned that the Precursors were not all knowing, for the two earths looked across the gulf with horror at the other. On one side humans were recovering from a nuclear winter following the glassing of entire cities. On the other were blighted ghost towns from a biological plague war so thorough that entire regional ecosystems were on the tottering edge of collapse. Both had no trouble recognizing their opposites for what they were: Evil Twins, more monstrous and inherently evil than their own sworn enemies of WW3 had ever been. To make matters worse, rather than forming a temporary window into what could have been, the mirrored realities superimposed themselves onto each other, bringing the doppelgangers into the same universe. Apparently the Precursors had seen a horror of their own, for within the year they had withdrawn completely, taking anything and everything that man could possible reverse engineer. Someday they planned to return, but that day would be distant.
Despite the thoroughness of the withdraw, humans had seen and studied enough to uncover the basics of Trans-Newtonian physics themselves, and within 10 years had built shipyards of their own and discovered the jump-point theory. Amidst an uneasy truce with their formal rivals three priorities, in order of importance, became clear:
1) Survive, ideal as a culture as well as a race.
2) Find and Exterminate the doppelgangers loose in your universe.
3) Become the dominant power in the solar system.
It is now 2050.
So, will you work together, or assimilate the resources of your rivals? Just remember, there are other powers out there.
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I'm in a bit of a rush, so excuse me if I only skimmed over your posts, but as Panopticon already mentioned, there's been multiplayer games around on these forums. There's one predessor to the two games in Panopticon's fiction forum (though I forgot where exactly it was - it's also somewhere in the fiction) and I've had a slightly different idea that I'm writing a background for in my own fiction subforum - though that's running awfully slow due to my time constraints until later this spring.
Since the community games were all Earth-based, I'd be interested in perhaps taking part in yours (especially as the current one runs quite slow due to resource constraints right now).
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Likewise, though be warned, whoever is actually playing out the turns needs to be able to devote a ton of time to it, it gets pretty crazy.
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as Panopticon already mentioned, there's been multiplayer games around on these forums.
Probably. I've certainty heard of people doing multi-player, but until Panopticon shouted out I couldn't find any recorded example. Excluding single-faction community games, the only result my google-fu research found is a mult-faction Lets-Play on the Dwarf Fortress forum. The forum searches here haven't turned up much either. :(
I was hoping for more interest than just the four of us, but if the SM duties get that crazy, maybe only having three players would be a good thing.
Once I know for sure who's playing I'll see about getting a game topic in the fiction section.
Currently:
SM - sublight (me)
Player1 - OAM47
Player2 - Vynadan
Player3 - Panopticon
If it's just the three, I'm thinking a Terran/Venesian/Martian Sol-start game.
If so, anyone object to the following starting conditions?
• Three starting NPRs, SM added to have lower than usual starting NPR tech. 0% chance of new NPRs.
• 60 max-stars map initially, to be expanded to 240 as soon as all starting races are jump-connected.
• Precursers on. Star Swarm off. Invaders off initially but to be activated if a sudden-death resolution is ever needed.
• All races have ±65% gravitational tolerance, ±50% O2 tolerance, ±21°C temperature tolerance.
- Earthling: 22°C ideal temperature, 0.2 atm ideal oxygen, 3.5 atm max pressure, 1G ideal gravity.
- Martian: 12° ideal temperature, 0.15 atm ideal oxygen, 2.8 atm max pressure, 0.8G ideal gravity.
- Venusian: 32°C ideal temperature, 0.25 atm ideal oxygen, 4.4 atm max pressure, 0.95G ideal gravity.
• Mars/Venus Terraformed to be be cost-0 to the starting inhabitants, cost-2.0 to everyone else.
• 400 million Conventional starting population.
- +1 free extra research lab, starting naval shipyard capacity pre-doubled.
- Starting Tech: Trans-Neutonain Theory, Jump-Point Theory, Geological Sensors, Genetic Engineering, +4,000 RP of choice.
- 8 soon-to-be-obsolete IBM bases
- 8,000 CP for pre-game industrial production/industry conversion.
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I wager SM duties will be pretty heavy. When I attempted it, I did four players (myself included), and it was pretty busy.
I say the starting conditions seem reasonable. How should we decide who's who?
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I'm just concerned that this might speed up the heat death of the universe, which has killed some of my previous games. (READ: point where it takes 30mins to do a day)
Otherwise I like it, might even want to take part.
I'm curious about how communication and turns would work though, some things like ship design might need more in-depth communication than available through PM, an IRC channel and some daily time period or something? 1 year a day? Or just run till something interesting happens and then ask players for input?
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• Three starting NPRs, SM added to have lower than usual starting NPR tech. 0% chance of new NPRs.
• 60 max-stars map initially, to be expanded to 240 as soon as all starting races are jump-connected.
• Precursers on. Star Swarm off. Invaders off initially but to be activated if a sudden-death resolution is ever needed.
• All races have ±65% gravitational tolerance, ±50% O2 tolerance, ±21°C temperature tolerance.
- Earthling: 22°C ideal temperature, 0.2 atm ideal oxygen, 3.5 atm max pressure, 1G ideal gravity.
- Martian: 12° ideal temperature, 0.15 atm ideal oxygen, 2.8 atm max pressure, 0.8G ideal gravity.
- Venusian: 32°C ideal temperature, 0.25 atm ideal oxygen, 4.4 atm max pressure, 0.95G ideal gravity.
• Mars/Venus Terraformed to be be cost-0 to the starting inhabitants, cost-2.0 to everyone else.
• 400 million Conventional starting population.
- +1 free extra research lab, starting naval shipyard capacity pre-doubled.
- Starting Tech: Trans-Neutonain Theory, Jump-Point Theory, Geological Sensors, Genetic Engineering, +4,000 RP of choice.
- 8 soon-to-be-obsolete IBM bases
- 8,000 CP for pre-game industrial production/industry conversion.
- No Swarm? :(
- Guess we could either draw straws or just go by favourites (if that works out) when it comes to who starts where.
- What about the affinities (militancy, etc.) and governmental forms?
- Considering the backstory, 8000 CP and 4000 RP seem quite low for me, but that's up to the SM's discretion and the whole thing sounds a bit fuzzy to me.
Concerning the communication: It's all abuot paying attention to what the players say. You can easily scribble down all the components in a design, actually. A one-year-a-day schedule is a kind of time consumption I'm not willing to admit to personally, though - Especially with different time zones and three NPRs from the start.
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I'm curious about how communication and turns would work though, some things like ship design might need more in-depth communication than available through PM, an IRC channel and some daily time period or something? 1 year a day? Or just run till something interesting happens and then ask players for input?
I was going to create a drop box account for digitally passing out a shared save for each player to enter exactly what designs/tech/industrial settings they wanted. More control for the players, less stuff the SM needs to worry about. If it turns out that everyone modifying the same save doesn't work, I'll keep passing out the save for review and let the participants send me PM containing empire management changes.
- No Swarm? :(
- Guess we could either draw straws or just go by favourites (if that works out) when it comes to who starts where.
- What about the affinities (militancy, etc.) and governmental forms?
- Considering the backstory, 8000 CP and 4000 RP seem quite low for me, but that's up to the SM's discretion and the whole thing sounds a bit fuzzy to me.
Concerning the communication: It's all abuot paying attention to what the players say. You can easily scribble down all the components in a design, actually. A one-year-a-day schedule is a kind of time consumption I'm not willing to admit to personally, though - Especially with different time zones and three NPRs from the start.
I could turn on swarm, but I've heard having multiple monster races creates a faster heat death.
I agree, 1-year a day is too much time commitment. Call it 2-days to buffer against Real Life, a third day to leave a little time for my own solo-campaign...
3-days. I'll try for 2, but I'll tentatively commit to a 3-day turn-around for the SM side of the cycle. Same deal for players. Faster the better, but after 3-days any unresponsive player forfeits that cycle's turn update. That should allow 1-2 cycles per week. Initially cycles will be 1-year (or until a significant event occurs). I'll start scaling back the time increments whenever the pass gets too fast for me or a player.
For faction control, I'll use a random number generator. The straw option.
For affinities/governments: I was originally planing on the players as 'player race.' Most governments seem to be weaker than 'Player Race' to different degrees, and I don't know which ones are balanced against which others. Still, if anyone wants a different government they can have a different government.
I'll write a new back-story.
My random dice generator says:
OAM47 - 3
Vynadan - 1,19
Panopticon - 1,12
Mars = High = OAM47
Earth = Middle = Vynadan
Venus = Low = Panopticon
Antagonist, I'm putting you down as 'backup.' The others have convinced me that 4+ players bogs down too fast.
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I'll admit my 1 year a day was a little too much. 3 days a year sounds less bad. Even longer perhaps if roleplay posts happen. :) The first month or so will also take disproportionately long due to setup and combat will slow things as well. If combat between players occurs I suppose it would be best handled realtime through IM or IRC, but will see.
I'm fine with being a backup.
EDIT: The exception to most governments being weaker than player race is a Meritocracy that seems to have some nice bonuses. The government type as far as I know affects the starting industry(which you can modify to bring in line with one another), as well as some hidden stats like xenophobia. I have yet to mess with it much, but I'm sure some scraps of info can be found on forum.
EDIT2: Now that I think about it a little more, perhaps consider the ble emu route of having me available as an administrator or co-leader of an empire? If one of the other 3 is willing to have me on that is. I could always 'defect' if I am needed to take over for another one.
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Heh, Mars was the one I wanted ;D
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I am actually totally cool (or hot I guess) with Venus.
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Nifty.
Well, when y'all are decided please PM me a list of your chosen unique starting techs, pre-start industrial production, government type, and a racial password I'll get started on the campaign setup. Be warned: I won't raise starting industry to match the 'Player Race' if you chose something non-standard. I'll just assume there is some hidden stat mod that you think is reallly worth it.
Edit: Oh empire themes. If you have a naming theme you want to use include that too. I'm pretty sure names can be changed latter on, but it's so much easier to make those selections on empire creation.
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An update every two to three days is not something I'm able to do. I only have access to my home PC on the weekends, with my laptop running aurora quite poorly and with mismatched windows. The way it is, you'll have to count me out of it.
The most I could do is one update a week.
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It's actually an update every 4-6 days. 2-3 days for the players, 2-3 days for the SM. 1-2 cycles per week depending on if the turn-around runs fast or slow.
Hmmmm.
Player moves due by end of weekend, SM resolution out before start of weekend. Exactly 1-cycle a week. That's somewhat slower, but still doable. I'm unsure of the added rigidity though.
Vynadan: Antagonist has already offered to be a co-emperor. Would you be interested in jointly controlling an Empire? The two of you could split the week up to weekend and weekday update responsibility, and keep the other updated on ongoing developments.
Antagonist, would you be up for primary command of Earth if Vynadan thinks joint control problematic?
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It's all up to Vynadan. If he wants I can play as an operations minister concerned with day-to-day where he plays dictator concerned with long term.
If not can figure something else out.
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I'll leave Earth to Antagonist.
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@Vynadan:
Alright, I'll leave initial ship design and research path selection to you. Need to pick a naming theme, since there is some nice ones like Greek.
I'll take over and be named as whatever administrator is best suited to administrate Earth, with you assuming the administrator best suited as sector commander (once we have that built of course).
@sublight: You should probably create a new thread in the Fiction section I think for this when it starts? I dunno if you want to split any roleplay posts with info and updates posts which might need 2 threads. Odd that the Aurora forums doesn't have a section dedicated to Community games.
@sublight, Vynadan: I'll PM you both my email addy. As for IM or other methods of contact I am on gtalk, IRC, skype, should you request.
EDIT: Also, any rules on inter-system communication, espionage, SM ship build points, research trades and how much of what we do is public or private?
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I assume you guys will be doing updates of your turns? In any case, I look forward to any visibility of your game on here!
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I prefer the "either transit or JG needed for comms" approach, but I was wondering about player diplomacy right off the bat.
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Order of business:
A Fiction Thread:
Yes, this game will have one. I've even put in a request for a Multiplayer/Community game subform. Not sure if this game will end up being documented in a 'Multiplayer Fiction' 'Multiplayer Senerio' or 'Sublight's Fiction.' If none of those exist when it's time to start I'll create a generic fiction topic for turn/diplomacy discussion.
Game Record Keeping:
I'll be publishing out of date 'Empire Fact Sheets' periodically to help outside observers keep track of who-who. Think CIA World FactBook, with data 5-15 years out of data depending on how common the knowledge likely is within your empire. Player thoughts/insights/fiction encouraged. I'm hoping to have a "yesterday's news" section describing in some detail thoughts/insights/developments form 10 years ago. Hopefully the time delay will let players be a little more open on otherwise sensitive details.
Communication:
I figured the ships all had quantum-entanglement FTL Interstellar coms, but I'll add some restrictions if the majority of players want additional restrictions. I feel "transit or JG required" is too restrictive, but "Coms take X-time to transmit. Faster death = no message sent" or "1-jump range. Communication chain required" are possible.
Player races start with full communication to each-other. The Government Leaders (players) may communicate publicly or privately.
Espionage, Diplomacy, and Trade
Normal Aurora 4x Espionage in effect. Diplomacy rules modified.
Government Treaties: By agreement or extortion Players may make agreements, treaties, etc. Negotiations may be private, but any official agreement or proclamation needs to be publicly announced.
Civilian Agreements: A measure of how closely the citizens of two nations are willing to work with each other, as described by normal NPR relation/treaty mechanics. Modification: Relations levels locked by SM to prevent same-system military ship tension. At any time by mutual agreement relations may be reset to '0.' Relations may be further improved by diplomacy teams: each diplomacy adds 1/2 their rating annually to the target and senders opinion of the other. +50% bonus for every civilian treaty.
Trade: Technology/ship/mineral/facility/foreign aid exchanges and transfers are permitted. They may be negotiated privately, but must be announced publicly. If two sides trade tech, the third side will be told both what was traded.
Minerals may be traded by ship or mass driver (the latter an SM transfer between mass drive equipped bodies).
Facility trades require transport of moved to a different body. No teleportation.
Game Start
Lets say 3-days after I requested starting Tech/Industry/password choices. Thats a little less than 36 hours from now. Players have until then to clarify an pre-start racial detail before the SM starts filling in any missing blanks.
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Well, I'm far from dead set on that being the communication rule. In short, I'd be happy as long ships have a chance to "go missing" from time to time, IE if we find a NPR that blows up a scout, I'd like to have to send a full expedition to find out what caused it.
I could go with delayed communication if no gate, the only question is how long/does it varry depending on real distances, etc. And of course, I'm in favor of a one hit wonder not sending off an SOS :P
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With 'leaving Earth to Antagonist' I meant to say that I won't be playing the faction at all, because I just can't keep up with the planned schedule ;)
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Empires created. Database download link PMs sent out.
There are three DropBox options:
A) Download only. Players get the database, review all the little details, and send the me a list of empire orders for implementation. Implementing all the orders might take an extra day, extending the SM turn cycle out to 2-4 days. This is the current setup.
B) Shared Folder. Requires all players to have DropBox accounts. I like this option, but requires the players to send me whatever e-mail is associated with their account so I can make the invites.
C) Shared account.
c i) Share my account. I give the players my dropbox password so they can do uploads/downloads to my account.
c ii) Create dedicated Aurora Multiplayer account. This requires creating a dedicated game-email.
Both 'B' and 'C' would require some player coordination to ensure no saved orders get overwritten.
Fiction Chat/Diplomacy topic coming once I get the game distribution issue settled.
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A, because B and C are asking for an accident to happen.
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C is. I'm willing to do B though. A is also doable, if more work for SM.
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Disagreement = SM choice. ;D
Lets at least try Option C: Shared account DropBox uploading.
I've sent all players a PM containing the DropBox account name and password.
Also, this will be the last post here.
All further game IC and OOC talk will be here (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,4595.0.html), in the fiction section under 'Children of Sol: Aurora Multiplayer'.
EDIT: If any of you all ready use DropBox and would prefer to use a shared folder, send me a PM with your E-mail and I'll make an invite for the appropriate folder. Or you can log in and invite yourself. Whatever works.
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Interesting thread. I'm actually planning to a forum multiplayer game where a bunch of players act as the El Presidente of various Earth countries/blocs, though I'd be the only with actual access to the game and thus act as a referee/judge/gamemaster/SM and not take part in the game itself.
Anyway, how does
Relations levels locked by SM to prevent same-system military ship tension.
work in essence? Is there a box you can tick in the diplomacy menu or do you mean that you regularly "reset" the diplomacy scores?
For others who have tried something like this before, any hints&tips would be appreciated.
Good luck with your game, sublight, Antagonist and OAM47!
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What am I, chopped liver? it might be useful to have a multiplayer forum where we could collect advice from our various attempts at playing.
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Is there a box you can tick in the diplomacy menu or do you mean that you regularly "reset" the diplomacy scores?
For others who have tried something like this before, any hints&tips would be appreciated.
I wish. Diplomacy is SM work. During the spring of every year I manually reset the relation score back to whatever it ought to be. So far that's '0'. Some races rolled better on foreign tolerance than others, but with a shared system it currently takes the most intolerant pair a bit less than 18 months to see relations go from '0' to '-100.' If I forget to reset relations two years in a row someone will downgrade someone else to hostile. There might be an easier way, but I haven't found it.
Other advise: read Steve's fiction and Panopticon's community game reports. Panopticon is currently running something similar to your planed game, and Steve's fiction frequently starts out with multi-block conventional earth starts.
Since Steve seems to be playing all the sides of his games, you'll find a lot more specific details behind the resulting hypothetical coexistent situation there than the real players of Panopticon's multiplayer multi-country game have givne out.
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You could just set the relations to something ridiculously high.
High relations means you can check those treaties - it doesn't mean you have to or that anything is actually different from zero relations to one another unless you specify it.
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Problem. While creating all conventional empires on Earth and fiddling with starting resources, I clicked the "No SB survey" button. Later on, I realized my error and used the "Body survey" button. Now my problem is that while all the additional empires can see the minerals on Earth, the default race, ie the first one, cannot. I have SM on and have clicked the "Body survey" button several times, making sure that the default race is selected but no go. Please tell me there's a way to fix this beyond of deleting the empire and re-creating them.
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Since I am GMing the Mutliplayer game that panop first created I can pass on some good details to you folks.
1) Diplomacy will only work as a GM option I bumped up all the Diplomacy to 100,000 and left it there. This way as a GM I can choose the tension level, research trades etc etc.
2) Anymore then 5 player blocks in the same system hammers cpu, mainly around sensor contacts. If you want to play with high number choose not to all start on the same planet.
3) Time dedicated as a GM you have to be dedicated to put in 5-8 hours per turn, that could be a week, 1/2 week a day. But you need to sustain it which is the hardest thing.
4) I have gone for a highly detail approach, this in itself has cause issue when you make mistake, miss some note etc etc. My suggestion here with thought on this matter for a while is this.
Set up a dropbox with faction folders, allow the players to drop there beginning changes into the box and pass to the next player, remembering to set it back to the default race (reason if you do not have a default race on entry you do not need a password for the last race exited.) Then you say to the players you will only get involved for the sixth month period if there is combat or an emergency. Orders can be set with delays, production and research can be queued.
This would make the GM work very light and and the responsiblity is on the player and you may be able to get turn around quite quick but need dedicated players or a group of players playing a bloc that makes sure player turns are moved quickly to the next bloc. Also the flow of the game is up to the players as the GM six months would not be harder then an 30min to an hour of pumping over turns. Then uploading with no further details.
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Problem. While creating all conventional empires on Earth and fiddling with starting resources, I clicked the "No SB survey" button. Later on, I realized my error and used the "Body survey" button. Now my problem is that while all the additional empires can see the minerals on Earth, the default race, ie the first one, cannot. I have SM on and have clicked the "Body survey" button several times, making sure that the default race is selected but no go. Please tell me there's a way to fix this beyond of deleting the empire and re-creating them.
Yes it is a bug, I could not fix this other then start again. Do not use the body survey sm button if you want to play it with multi races.
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Since Steve seems to be playing all the sides of his games, you'll find a lot more specific details behind the resulting hypothetical coexistent situation there than the real players of Panopticon's multiplayer multi-country game have givne out.
I can give details around this without giving spoilers so feel free to ask away, also as a GM the ability to access the database is a must. Some the things I do are not even available as an SM option.
E.G. move componets from one faction to another.
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Yes it is a bug, I could not fix this other then start again. Do not use the body survey sm button if you want to play it with multi races.
Damn. Hmm, could I SM a single geosurvey ship for that race, use it to survey Earth and then delete it? Trying that now.
Edit: worked like a charm. I used SM to give the race TN-tech, Geosurvey sensors and conventional E10 engines. Then used Fast OB creator to give them a single Geosurvey Ship. Then used SM to remove the technologies from the race. After the GeoSurvey ship has finished, I'll use SM to delete the ship and none of the players will be any wiser. Perfect.
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Another problem. We have a conventional start. Conventional industry is unable to build missiles of any kind, not even the default ICBMs.
My players want to build the default PDCs. They do not come with missiles already equipped. Is there a way in SM to give them missiles or even better, just fill the magazines?
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You can build ICBM missiles, I think they are either already designed and obsolete so you need to unobsolete them.
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Aye, they are in the missiles menu, you can put them in the build queue but the conventional industry does not act as ordnance factories, so there is no capability to build them.
Edit: Disregard my stupidity. There is an SM command for it that I just found. Empires -> Military Organization -> Ammo Transfer, in case anyone else stumbles upon the same problem.
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IIRC, you can also go to the ship design screen / ordnance management and SM-load all ships of a class from there. And in the Ship screen / ordnance management you can fast-reload your standard loadout as the SM.
Ships created with the Fast OOB also spawn with full missiles.
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Thanks. Another question - is there a way to SM ground units to a race? I'm trying to create "neutrals" on Earth that don't belong into any of the player-run power blocs and since many have quite small populations, the conventional start doesn't give them any Low-Tech Infantry or Armour. I've scoured the various menus but can't seem to find a way to do it. The "Add Unit" button in "GU Training" Tab doesn't work with LTI/LTA as you can't normally build them either.
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I don't think there is any direct way to SM up conventional armies.
You might however be able to SM in a new conventional faction with a large population, transfer the generated units around, and then simply reduce / abandon the population(s) until you have the size and number of desired conventional powers.
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Ah, an excellent work-around. I'll try that.
EDIT: And it worked brilliantly, thanks again.
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One of our original players has expressed interest in dropping out. If anyone would like to jump in to take over the Mars faction in a multiplayer game send me a PM. The game is currently moving slightly slower than 2x 1-year turns every week.
Edit: Slot filled.
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Any news about your multiplayer game ?
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The game is currently playing out in the Aurora_Fiction sub-forum under the name "Children of Sol: Multiplayer Aurora (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,4595.0.html)"
The game is moving fairly quick time wise (almost 20 game years have passed), but there has been minimal conflict so far. Since conflict makes the story, I've had to invent/exaggerate every scrap of disquiet such as colony overcrowding unrest and even officer health reports to find material to write about. Good exercise for the imagination. Mostly I've just sat back, run turns, and observed the different empire building strategies. I'll tell you this: different players give much more subtle diversity to factions than running them all yourself.
Anything in particular you were curious about?
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I think we are on the brink of some potentially interesting stuff though. Pretty much all Aurora games are slow during the first couple decades, especially if you are doing a conventional or mostly conventional start. You need a lot of time to tech up to do anything.
The next time one gets run perhaps we could either skip directly to full on TN stuff with fleets and everything, or run 5 year increments or something until we get to an interesting point.
Figuring it out is a work in progress for sure.
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Wow i'm impressed ! honestly i though the player would quickly loose interest/be always absent. I also though the multiplayer aspect would be unmanagable for the SM, apparently i was wrong. :)
Is it possible to join your current game as a very minor faction (like a small moon declaring independance) ?
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@Geoffroypi
I'm afraid it would be too disruptive to try stuffing a 4th faction in, but I'll remember your name incase I ever have to recruit a replacement.
@ Panopticon
I might have been a little optimistic in skipping 'only' the first decade after a conventional start. Either using a longer time skip or having the first few turns be multiyear sounds like a good recommendation. Still, with jump gates going up and the Children of Sol branching out onto the Galactic map I have to agree that the potential for interesting developments is increasing. 8)
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Ok .
If one day you need a remlacement/governor/vassal or whatever is useful for your game tell me, this summer, though, i might not be able to play. ;)
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Recruiting a replacement, again.
((This is starting to resemble a multifaction succession game))
The commander of Mars is suffering technical difficulties, and since none of us know how much longer they will last permission was granted to look for a replacement.
The game news-discousion thread is under Aurora Fiction: Children of Sol Multiplayer (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,4595.0.html)
If anyone is interested in joining, just reply to this thread.
Edit: Slot filled.
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Good that you managed to replace me so quickly and good luck to the new commander of Mars!
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Thancks Garfunkel, luck is exaclty what i need if i don't want to have my head on a venusian spike .
Multiplayer reveals a greater potential in Aurora that allies both the freedom of tabletop games and the power of a computer . I wonder if its feasible to allow external persons or 'retired' players to participate in the Roleplay of the game. Not having a purely executive power (like the SM, Earth ,mars and venus players) but could greatly influence the course of the game by they own words, We all know that the pen is mightier than a quadruple thermonuclear fission missiles launcher (I'm not convinced, though ::) ).
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I really like the experience of Multiplayer Aurora. Real players make the game more challenging, especially with close homeworlds. Every move you make has to be the right one, or you lose time. Diplomacy and trade now become very important.
For the player is not time consuming to plan their faction turn.
Only negative, is that you have to wait some time to play (plan your turn).
sublight how much time you need to run the six month turn?
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Hmmm.
Advancing time: 1.5 hours
Going slow to take notes: +0.5 hours
Reviewing old save for spy reports (every other 6month block) + 0.5 hours
Posting Turn summaries: +0.5 hours
Total: About 3 hours.
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Not terrible, during the old game before my computer gave out (which you can find in my fiction section) turns for me became a day long process. Though we hadn't figured out the dropbox method at the time and I had something like 6 players. I think you have hit on the most efficient way to to play.
I'm rather having fun myself, real people being involved makes it much more entertaining.
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Curiosity, is anyone interested in viewing the save files showing the starting setup/early years?
I've been keeping a yearly archive of the "Children of Sol" multiplayer game to reference for historical reports, but now that our game is nearing the 25th year mark the files are starting to make a minor dent in my hard drive. I figured I'd ask if anyone wanted them for either curiosity or as a pre-made multi-faction scenario before I started deleting.
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The database is actually very easy to compress. Even a several hundred MB .mdb compresses into a fairly small archive.
(I just tested a 70 MB database with LZMA2 compression into a .7z, which turned it into ~7 MB)
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I know the current game is full but is anyone planning on starting up another one? If so I'm interested in joining.
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Yes ! Bartimeus is planning a multiplayer game and is recruiting players , you should PM him 8)
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Thanks for the heads up. I have messaged him.
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A slot in my multiplayer game is opening up for Mars if anyone is interested. Both old players wishing to return and new interests are welcome. The save file is shared via drop box in a .zip compressed format. I advance the clock 6 months every 3-4 days to give a 2-turn a week pace. Updating orders every turn isn't required, but players are expected to give orders most of the time, or at least PM me a 'pass.'
Anyone interested should reply here to let others know the slot was filled. Anyone wanting to join the waiting list after that can drop me a PM. No promises on the waiting list, but this is the 4th replacement I've recruited since February.
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I've been following the game for a while and would be interested in joining.
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I started a new 6.2 multiplayer game as a sequel to my previous one, and with the new civilian shipping line retirements and multi-facion management options think I can handle one more player if anyone is interested.
Same setup. Save is uploaded/downloaded to and from a shared dropbox folder to allow players to input faction orders directly. Same game update rate as before, although this may be slowed a bit for the coming New Year and Christmas holiday happenings.
For reference:
New Game. (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,5674.0.html)
Old Game. (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,4595.0.html)
Edit: All slots filled, unless someone wants to SM a new game.