Aurora 4x

New Players => The Academy => Topic started by: blue emu on May 16, 2012, 06:50:01 PM

Title: Noob Questions: Geologists and Nebulae
Post by: blue emu on May 16, 2012, 06:50:01 PM
More of my noob questions:

1) What's the maximum effective skill of a Geology team? 140? 160?

2) What works properly (and what does not) in a Nebula? Shields and Missiles are useless? Sensors and FCs are degraded? What about Beam Weapons? Mesons?
Title: Re: Noob Questions: Geologists and Nebulae
Post by: OokamiNya on May 16, 2012, 07:44:42 PM
Skill for a geo team is the sum of the skill of the members and the max for each officer is 60 iirc, so max for a team should be 300.  Practically unattainable for any reasonable length of time since officers have a bad habit of dying and retiring.

Never found a nebula though, so I can't say for that.
Title: Re: Noob Questions: Geologists and Nebulae
Post by: Tarran on May 16, 2012, 07:53:54 PM
2) What works properly (and what does not) in a Nebula? Shields and Missiles are useless? Sensors and FCs are degraded? What about Beam Weapons? Mesons?
My memory is fuzzy, but I believe I've read that missiles and shields are useless while everything else remains the same. This is just what I think I remember, though, so don't take my word too seriously.
Title: Re: Noob Questions: Geologists and Nebulae
Post by: blue emu on May 16, 2012, 07:57:27 PM
Skill for a geo team is the sum of the skill of the members and the max for each officer is 60 iirc, so max for a team should be 300.

I know that the SKILLS can go that high, but I'm pretty sure that the EFFECT of the skills is capped around 160 or so. I was just trying to see if anyone knew the exact cap.
Title: Re: Noob Questions: Geologists and Nebulae
Post by: OokamiNya on May 16, 2012, 08:15:20 PM
hxxp: aurora2.  pentarch.  org/index.  php/topic,4788.  msg48397.  html#msg48397

Oh, I misunderstood the question.  According to Marthnn, 140 minimizes the chance of a body having its survey completed when they find a deposit, but the way the post is worded makes it seem like deposit size and frequency are still affected by higher team skills.   

EDIT: Forum is screwing with my links.   Is it because my post count is so low?
Title: Re: Noob Questions: Geologists and Nebulae
Post by: blue emu on May 16, 2012, 08:31:07 PM
EDIT: Forum is screwing with my links.   Is it because my post count is so low?

Yes, with a sufficiently high post-count, your links are printed just as posted.

Thanks for the link, that answers my question.
Title: Re: Noob Questions: Geologists and Nebulae
Post by: Thiosk on May 16, 2012, 11:31:55 PM
It is possible, if you skill your geos to 60, to put them on survey craft and skill them up past 60
Title: Re: Noob Questions: Geologists and Nebulae
Post by: metalax on May 17, 2012, 06:19:44 AM
In the next release there will be no skill level required for maximising finds as there will be only a single find with a chance on all minerals. As such, team skill will only effect how fast the survey is completed.

In a nebula shields and missiles will not function and ship speed is capped at a multiple of the number of armour layers on the ship.
Title: Re: Noob Questions: Geologists and Nebulae
Post by: Hawkeye on May 17, 2012, 06:29:09 AM
New for v2.6 will be Nebulas!

These appear as a normal system, albeit with a paler background, and will have a single protostar at the centre. The protostar itself will be based on a main sequence star or red dwarf and will have a greater diamater and lower luminosity than its main sequence equivalent. Some protostars will be close to ignition, in which case they will be close to their eventual equivalent in terms of size and luminosity while others may be in the early stages of star formation and might be huge with a very low luminosity. The dust cloud surrounding each protostar (the Nebula) will extend for trillions of kilometers in all directions (if you are in the system you are in the Nebula) and will have a specific dust density, referred to as the Nebula Leve). For early protostars the dust density will be much higher than for those close to ignition.

The Nebula Level will be generated as 1-5 and then a loop will begin where there is a 50% chance to either add D5 more levels or exit. So 50% of Nebulas will be 1D5 Nebulas, 25% will be 2D5, 12.5% will be 3D5, etc.

All Nebulas prevent the use of shields and missiles. Beyond that, the Nebula Level has several effects

1) Max ship speed is (10000/Nebula Level ) * Armour Thickness. For example, a ship with armour thickness 1 in a Level 5 Nebula, will have a maximum speed of 10000/5 * 1 = 2000 km/s. If the armour was thickness 2, the top speed would be 4000 km/s. Note that missiles with armour still won't function in a Nebula as the armour is ablative and designed for use against lasers.

2) Passive Sensor strengths are divided by the Nebula Level. For example, a Strength-12 Thermal sensor in a Level 6 nebula would function like a Strength-2 Thermal Sensor

3) Active Sensor Ranges are divided by the Nebula Level. For example, an active sensor with a range of 30 million kilometers in a Level 10 Nebula, would have a range of 3 million kilometers.

4) The chance to hit for all beam fire control systems is divided by the Nebula Level. For example, if a fire control has a 60% chance to hit after all other factors have been considered, that will be reduced to 15% in a Level 4 Nebula or 5% in a level 12 Nebula. It's assumed that beam weapons are powerful enough to ignore the dust with little effect but getting their fire control to lock on the target is the tricky part.

Fighting in Nebulas will be a case of trying to find your opponent, probably at close range, and then using your still powerful beam weapons with heavily degraded fire control against a shieldless target. And yes, I did enjoy Wrath of Khan

Steve
Title: Re: Noob Questions: Geologists and Nebulae
Post by: xeryon on May 17, 2012, 06:49:15 AM
From my observation it seems as though nebulae reward you for all the irritation they cause:  they always seem to produce more mineral rich bodies.
Title: Re: Noob Questions: Geologists and Nebulae
Post by: OokamiNya on May 17, 2012, 03:45:10 PM
How commonly are nebulae generated anyway? I've encountered a handful of black holes, but like I said before, not a single nebula.  Granted, I've only played a few campaigns to get a handle for the game mechanics, but still. . .
Title: Re: Noob Questions: Geologists and Nebulae
Post by: blue emu on May 17, 2012, 04:05:00 PM
How commonly are nebulae generated anyway? I've encountered a handful of black holes, but like I said before, not a single nebula.  Granted, I've only played a few campaigns to get a handle for the game mechanics, but still. . .

I've never found one in a "Real Stars" game. In my first "Random" game, I've found two so far.
Title: Re: Noob Questions: Geologists and Nebulae
Post by: Nathan_ on May 17, 2012, 08:05:12 PM
Nebulae are non-realstar games only, blackholes are realstar games only. No blackhole nebulae of doom unfortunately.
Title: Re: Noob Questions: Geologists and Nebulae
Post by: xeryon on May 17, 2012, 08:47:36 PM
Interesting on the nebulae and black hole generation.  I primarily play with real stars turned off and tend to find numerous nebulae, probably 1 in 8 or 1 in 10 systems has been one for me on average.  They seem to cluster together as well.  I have not yet found a black hole but if they only generate in real stars that would be why.
Title: Re: Noob Questions: Geologists and Nebulae
Post by: Andrew on May 19, 2012, 02:28:17 PM
I believe the clustering of nebulae is deliberate, from what I remember systems close to one with a nebula are more likely to be in a nebula
Title: Re: Noob Questions: Geologists and Nebulae
Post by: Steve Walmsley on May 20, 2012, 06:29:12 AM
I believe the clustering of nebulae is deliberate, from what I remember systems close to one with a nebula are more likely to be in a nebula

Yes, clustering is deliberate.

Steve
Title: Re: Noob Questions: Geologists and Nebulae
Post by: Brian Neumann on May 20, 2012, 08:47:53 AM
I believe the clustering of nebulae is deliberate, from what I remember systems close to one with a nebula are more likely to be in a nebula
I believe that you are correct.  There is a chance (around 25-30% I think) that any jump point explored from a nebula will connect to a nebula system with a similiar density. 

Also the mineral generation chance is played with to give more mineral rich systems in a nebula.  The downside of a nebula is you will never find more than 1 star so there are no binary, trinary ect type systems.

Brian