Aurora 4x
New Players => The Academy => Topic started by: Silfir on October 24, 2012, 06:22:23 PM
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- I've found out that by far the most promising non-asteroid mining options are at Neptune or even farther away (Eris and Triton, for instance). My current Freighter design uses up well over 100,000 fuel to deliver just one Automated Mine and go back. That seems crazy to me somehow. Am I better off looking for options in some of the next systems, or am I doing something fundamentally wrong? My Freighter runs on one max-size Nuclear Thermal Engine, reaching a top speed of blistering 217 km/s, and has a standard cargo hold (i. e. big enough for the mine). Do I need better engines to make it worthwhile, or should I stick to the next systems, or is a million in fuel spent to get four or five automated mines and a mass driver on a planet with sizable deposits a decent enough investment for the future?
- What would be the correct set of orders to make my asteroid miners fully automatic? Colonies at all prospective targets, a small cargo hold?
- Is there a point to colonizing planets without or with crap minerals?
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Early on your best bet is to focus on near earth resources. check out the comets for example. Likewise any jump points within the asteroid belt mean that other starsystems and planets ARE closer than neptune, but you'll have to see.
As for fuel though, Lower the engine power modifier as low as it will go and you should get some fuel efficient freighters, though as you can see they move slow. better technology engines, and better fuel consumption tech absolutely help however. That said, the increase in fuel use is working as intended, 100,000 fuel isn't that much.
There is no way to automate asteroid mining currently, but you can reduce fuss by having a freighter travel with the miners with a mass driver in its hold.
If you see no reason to colonize right away then don't(I find that focusing on automines and freighters is best early on), but eventually you'll run into limitations that can only be solved by having other planets.
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Further clarification on the numbers: each unit of sorium is converted to 2000 litres of fuel by a refinery, so that 100,000 fuel is just 50 sorium. a base mine on a 1.0 deposit will take 5 years to generate that. increases in mining tech, better mining admins, and so on reduce that number.
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I usually build the biggest possible commercial engine, since that seems to be the way to minimize fuel usage (It's "well over" 100,000, but ~75 Sorium to transport one automated mine doesn't seem too terrible. Especially since Saturn has like 27 millions of the stuff). So building better drives seems like the way to go. I'll get to that right after I'm done with jump ship designs.
I need to look back at comets, since those seems to be the only really good mineral sources in the solar system right now; I always have this fear of my asteroid miners getting stuck in the middle of nowhere for a hundred years, without me getting my minerals. How long can comets be out of reach, and how do I tell? If I watch out for slow-moving ones that are flying towards the sun (those seem like the best bet), how much time do I get?
If I put automated mines and a mass driver on a comet, will the mass driver get me my stuff? The comet will be far away but not technically leave the system, right?
- I'm getting kind of paranoid about this because I've never designed any kind of military ship - when do I need to start preparing for combat? I have a 4000 ton naval shipyard with two slipways, high density duranium armor and I've developed enough railgun tech to, well, mount railguns. Though I suspect I need to research some Fire Control to aim them. I can only find teach referring to "beam fire control" though; are those used for railguns or gauss, too?
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Look at the orbits on the F9 page, generally if its near the sun when you start it isn't going far out of the system, and comets don't move particularly fast in any event. The mass driver will indeed shoot minerals anywhere, though for the furthest out ones it is better to freighter the minerals, and lastly comets do not leave the system that they are in.
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F9 only returns an error currently (something about a missing DLL, and it seems to be a known bug; I'll try and find the DLL online at some point), but I found the "Comet Path" checkbox and I feel very stupid now. Most of them don't even go past Saturn orbit.
brb strip-mining comets
(I was editing in a question when you replied, by the way - some pointers would be much appreciated!)
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I usually build the biggest possible commercial engine, since that seems to be the way to minimize fuel usage (It's "well over" 100,000, but ~75 Sorium to transport one automated mine doesn't seem too terrible. Especially since Saturn has like 27 millions of the stuff). So building better drives seems like the way to go. I'll get to that right after I'm done with jump ship designs.
I need to look back at comets, since those seems to be the only really good mineral sources in the solar system right now; I always have this fear of my asteroid miners getting stuck in the middle of nowhere for a hundred years, without me getting my minerals. How long can comets be out of reach, and how do I tell? If I watch out for slow-moving ones that are flying towards the sun (those seem like the best bet), how much time do I get?
If I put automated mines and a mass driver on a comet, will the mass driver get me my stuff? The comet will be far away but not technically leave the system, right?
- I'm getting kind of paranoid about this because I've never designed any kind of military ship - when do I need to start preparing for combat? I have a 4000 ton naval shipyard with two slipways, high density duranium armor and I've developed enough railgun tech to, well, mount railguns. Though I suspect I need to research some Fire Control to aim them. I can only find teach referring to "beam fire control" though; are those used for railguns or gauss, too?
Re Gas Giant Sorium: This is different from stuff on asteroids or terrestrial planets, you need sorium harvest modules to get the stuff. also theres lots of it everywhere, so don't worry about that.
As far as military, that depends on how many spoilers and NPRs are active. if nothing is active, don't worry, you're largely alone. otherwise worry. Beam FCs work on everything that isn't a missile or missile launcher. You will also need an active grav sensor to paint a target for the FC to shoot at. The ship design and advanced tactics forums have plenty of help on how to build a ship as well.
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If the DLL problem you're having is related to MSSTDFMT.DLL than install this http://www.pcwintech.com/simple-shutdown-timer (http://www.pcwintech.com/simple-shutdown-timer) and than simply remove it after you're done. It contains the DLL.
That's the one I know affects F9 screen so I think it should help.
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I was just about to ask, since downloading just the file didn't seem to work - I was trying to colonize a moon without mineral deposits because it had alien ruins, and I was at a loss as to how, since without mineral deposits it won't show up in the geological survey screen and I can't find a button to found a Colony anywhere, and I suspect it must be in the F9 window, which I have never seen. That would be the first step into delving into secrets man was not meant to know. (I do need a colony for my xenoarchaelogy team to work from, right?)
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Another way to create a colony is on the System Map (F3). Right click on the body you want to create a colony on and the I believe it is the 4th option in the context menu that will let you create a colony.
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Or just send your team there. The colony will be automatically created.
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Early game missiles are a better bet (punch-for-buck) than beams but it is entirely possible to utilize railgun-armed ships, especially for JP defence. Not too useful for attacking since your ships will probably be very slow.
You need the following:
- Active Sensor to find targets
- Beam Fire Control to "paint" the targets - don't waste HS by having more range than your AS
- Railguns
- Powerplants to feed them enough juice - and probably one or two extra, so little battle damage doesn't knock weapons out
As Nathan_ said, the Bureau and Academy have plenty of discussions and designs, including conventional start/early game tech levels.
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Got my xenologist team planted on the surface. It's now marked as an Archaelogical Dig in the Populations and Production window on the left, so I'm assuming it's working fine and they're just doing their job properly by toothbrushing every bit. Though the Summary still states "Abandoned Installations - ???" - "Unknown Race - Xenologist required" - I assume that's the norm until they're finished doing what they do. Even in an age of interstellar space travel I'm guessing it involves lots of toothbrushes.
I've read something about an 150 skill limit with regards to teams. Are any further skill points superfluous since they don't lead to better results, and consequently you want teams as close to it as possible? I can form Geology teams of that skill level, but my noob xenologists only add up to 105% at the moment; is that bad?
I'm going to need an engineer brigade to reap the rewards of my meddling with priceless artifacts. I'm guessing I have to research that and train some; what's the tech path? Do I start with Construction Brigade and then get Engineering? Also, I "converted" all my low tech infantry and armor, and attack and defense for the new cadres is listed as 0. 10 (modified by combat bonus to 0. 11-0. 13). That doesn't seem reassuring, but I have no scale to compare them on. Am I fine sending those guys along with an engineer brigade to prepare for. . . eventualities?
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Since 6.0, the original engineer brigades are no more, and have morphed into construction brigades, so you only need those(combat engineers are good fighting battalions that get bonuses fighting from or against pdcs, IIRC). However, low tech ground units tend to not be very good(only having combat bonuses that never exceed 4 without a VERY good commander). For comparison, a basic mobile infantry, the standard ground unit of a TN start, has an attack bonus of around 5, but they have a defense bonus of 10. They make very good defensive units for your construction brigade. That said, cadres aren't even fighting units anymore, they're now training units for your TN military, and as such, should NEVER(unless things go completely FUBAR) be used in combat
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Good to know that I haven't actually had a ground military ever since I reached Trans-Newtonian Tech. I'm assuming a Construction Brigade can fight on its own okay, but is it wise to send them alone into those alien ruins? They might encounter . . . unforseen circumstances. Should I send several, or train dedicated ground combat units to send along?
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Definitely send some ground units along; like you said, construction brigades can at least defend themselves, but against....unforseen things, they have even odds of being wiped out unless backed up
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What I personally do is I move whole brigades (4 batalions) with brigade headquarters.
I don't know if the new construction brigades are as big as the old engineering brigades (3 batalions big compared to say mobile infantry that's 1 batalion big).
This means one ship with 5 troop transport bays can carry a whole brigade (4 regular units + hq) and if they have the drop modules drop them all at the same time. The obvious negative for that is the fact that if it blows up you just lost 5 brigades, compared to having multiple small ships carrying 1 brigade each.
If construction brigades are as big as they used to be (and again someone has to confirm that for me) than a ship with 5 troop transport bays would allow you to carry one construction brigade and 2 other units (say mobile infantry) and that from my experience is enough to keep a site like that pretty secure.
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Yes, they're the same as the original engineer brigades; however, I don't know what version of aurora you've been playing, because both the original and current construction brigades are and have always been size 25, meaning you'd need 5 troop transport modules to carry one construction brigade
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Small troop trasport bay/small drop module provides 1 space for troops.
Troop trasport bay/drop module provides 5 spaces for troops.
Marine Company is 1 space in size.
Divisional HQ, Brigade HQ, Combat engineers and all Battalions are 5 spaces in size.
Construction Brigade is 25 spaces in size.
Low tech infantry and armour are 50 spaces in size.
A Brigade of troops (1 Brigade HQ + 4 Battalions) is 25 spaces in size.
A Division of troops (1 Divisional HQ + 4 Brigade HQ's + 16 Battalions) is 105 spaces in size.
A brigade transport will have 5 troop transport bays for 25 space and be able to carry 5 battalions or a single construction brigade.
A common tactic if moving a full division is to use 5 brigade sized transports and bring 4 replacment battalions along in the transport carrying the divisional HQ.
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Yes, they're the same as the original engineer brigades; however, I don't know what version of aurora you've been playing, because both the original and current construction brigades are and have always been size 25, meaning you'd need 5 troop transport modules to carry one construction brigade
Oh yes my bad. Just woke up and the numbers got mixed up in my head. They need 5 not 3 sorry about that.
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No word from my xenologists yet. Are they just twiddling their thumbs? How long does an archaeological dig usually take? Is there any way to check their progress? Does it take longer if there's more stuff?
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I'll put it like that.
When I found a system with 3 different ruins in it on similar planets I sent xenologist teams to them at the same time with reasonably similar level of expertise.
One team found installations and their origin after a year.
The second one finished it's job after 8 years.
The third took 30 years.
All the ruins were pretty much the same quality in terms of infrastructure that it granted, so most probably xenologists work like geologists used to. That is mostly random.
The one "trick" I used to do with geologists if they took forever to do their job was disbanding their team and assembling it again with the lowest skill guy being replaced by someone else. This usually did the trick.
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What skills does jump gate construction benefit from and/or train? Operations, Logistics, none at all?
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What skills does jump gate construction benefit from and/or train? Operations, Logistics, none at all?
The factory bonus if I recall.
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Been wondering what that was for!
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Been wondering what that was for!
It's primary purpose is to aid planetary and sector governors.
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Certainly, and I've been wondering how my naval officers would end up being in charge of a factory. My working theory was that there was probably some way to put ordnance or fighter factory modules on ships following the main fleet, or modules for planetary construction in orbit similar to mining or terraforming modules. Apparently jump gate construction is close enough.
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Certainly, and I've been wondering how my naval officers would end up being in charge of a factory. My working theory was that there was probably some way to put ordnance or fighter factory modules on ships following the main fleet, or modules for planetary construction in orbit similar to mining or terraforming modules. Apparently jump gate construction is close enough.
The short answer is that Aurora didn't start with civilian administrators. Governors were officers.
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On a less serious note, at least twice when looking at an officer's personnel file, it didn't list either M or F under "Sex", but the rather ominous "Yes!!". This is either a joke on Steve's part, or the Aurora program has become convoluted enough to develop sentience. At least this particular AI doesn't seem intent murderous - just lecherous. Not sure how I feel about that.
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Got another one. I found tons of minerals with decent accessibility on the Moon of all places in this game, and the colony is already going strong. Also, finally the civilians are actually doing stuff. They've been ferrying colonists and mines all over the place and have already founded three CMCs and it's awesome.
I'm wondering about the Infrastructure. Apparently the infrastructure trade good on my home world can be turned into actual infrastructure on Luna without me having to build any myself. Right now nothing is moving though.
Essentially my question is whether I will have to do anything. If I understand the system correctly, the moment the population of Luna exceeds the Infrastructure limit there will be a demand for Infrastructure there, and the civilian shipping lines will jump at the chance to fulfill it using the excess produced by Earth. Is that correct?
Looking at the Wiki article, it says that from one million pop onwards, the eight basic goods will be traded - they haven't appeared yet, though. Can that take some time? I understand the Wiki is somewhat outdated, has something changed here, or the trade system for that matter, that I should be aware of?
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Essentially my question is whether I will have to do anything. If I understand the system correctly, the moment the population of Luna exceeds the Infrastructure limit there will be a demand for Infrastructure there, and the civilian shipping lines will jump at the chance to fulfill it using the excess produced by Earth. Is that correct?
Essentially yes, as long as there is a demand and a supply within the civilian freighters range it will try and fulfill it. The population doesn't actually have to exceed the population supported by infrastructure figure, when it starts getting reasonably close demand for infrastructure will appear on the colony.