Aurora 4x
VB6 Aurora => VB6 Mechanics => Topic started by: doulos05 on December 19, 2015, 08:03:44 PM
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Populated Asteroids
This will also make the bioengineering of low gravity species much more useful.
OMG, belters!!!
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Steve forgot to lock his change log, so I did so and split this reply out into the discussion thread.
John
PS - Steve keeps his change log threads locked so that the "release note" information in the thread isn't diluted by discussion posts
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Steve forgot to lock his change log, so I did so and split this reply out into the discussion thread.
John
PS - Steve keeps his change log threads locked so that the "release note" information in the thread isn't diluted by discussion posts
No problem, and I stand by my original statement. OMG, belters!
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I'm so happy that I'll finally be able to choose names for things out of a list! No longer will I have to hit the new button several times until I find a good name for a class, cluttering everything up! Thank you so much, Steve!
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Love all the changes Keep up the great work! Will there ever be a return of some sort of Hyperdrive to reach the outer reaches of a binary, trinary etc... system?
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Moon Descriptions
...[snip]
Nice. Like others, I welcome the display of all moon sub-groups. 8)
Populated Asteroids
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...Therefore in v7.10, asteroids with a gravity of at least 0.02G are treated like any other body when assessing colony cost. So now you will be able to establish normal populations on larger asteroids. They still won't have atmospheres but those could be added via terraforming.
This will also make the bioengineering of low gravity species much more useful.
[Emphasis added is mine.]
It's fine to make bioengineering of low gravity species a bit more useful and appealing.
However, I really dislike the idea of making it possible to terraform asteroids and give them a breathable atmosphere. :-\
Even with a slight gravity, asteroids can not hold a significant atmosphere. The biggest body in the Solar System's asteroid belt is Ceres and the second biggest is 4 Vesta. But minor bodies like those are dwarf planets, not asteroids.
Even such dwarfs have very little gravity. Ceres has 0.029 g or about 2.8% of Earth's, with 4 Vesta right behind with 0.025 g. That's much less than even Titan, for instance.
Looking at bodies in the Sol system that Aurora classifies as quote, "asteroids", I only find a few with at least 0.02 g. There's Vesta with 0.03 g, Pallas with 0.02 g, and perhaps a couple others.
The asteroid belt receives far more solar energy than Saturn's moons. And with enough solar energy and solar wind, an atmosphere will evaporate away if there's not enough gravity to hold it - especially without a magnetosphere to protect it. Simplified to the basics, the ability for a planet to hold an atmosphere (or lack thereof) should be a function of both proximity to the parent star (and the star's solar energy) and gravity.
Indeed, NASA found evidence that Mar's atmosphere may have been blown away by solar wind!
Solar Wind Rips Up Martian Atmosphere - NASA Science (http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/21nov_plasmoids/)
Besides, even if 0.02 g was enough for an atmosphere, most asteroids are highly irregular in shape. Any atmosphere they could accumulate would settle to low spots and high gravity areas, leaving the "mountains" and rest of the surface with little atmosphere.
Keeping this new ability to establish normal populations on larger asteroids is one thing. But couldn't you add code to prevent them from being terraformed?
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The fact such a mechanic will be in game does mean you have to use it, the same way many things in Aurora could be argued against for the sake of realism. Having options to do things like terraform asteroids is not going to detract from the enjoyment factor of anyone, while it will add to it for some. It sounds like this is a simple matter of changing how the game will view asteroids from one body type to another, no masses of extra code and such. So I'm confused why anyone would not jump on the "more is better" wagon for this.
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He has a point, you couldn't make a tiny chunk of rock into an ideal world without infrastructure, which is already available for using for that exact reason.
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To be honest I don't really see what the problem is. Let's not forget that this is a GAME. We already have a ton of non plausible stuff here. For example.... you know... the entire trans-newtonian tech tree.
Aurora is a game at the end of the day, and I don't really see what is the problem is in allowing terraforming of bodies with a decent gravity. After all, the very fact of creating a gas atmosphere out of nowhere, not to mention the impossible gases (Anti greenshouse gas anyone? What's that?) is already science fiction. So technically you should not be able to terraform anything at all this way, according to current physics.
If you really want to nitpick about the problems of worlds and realistic data in Aurora there's far bigger problems. Like, the fact there's no population limits for planets. Or the fact that terraforming is a process that takes the same time no matter what the size of the planet, while realistically a super earth with 30000 km+ diameter should take tens of times the years it takes to terraform a modest moon....
The game does not model all this, and that's not really a problem in my book. Let's put it all under the "it's a game after all" rug and move on to the fun parts... Hey, you're not even forced to do it if you don't like it!
Regarding the entire thing about Mars who lost its atmosphere, it took MILLIONS of years. Aurora generally spans less than a century. You don't like the fact that a small body can be terraformed? Roleplay it! Put a terraforming station on the planet and leave it there, and in your head that terraforming station is "replacing constantly the gas that's been lost in space due to the gravity being too low". Problem solved...
Regarding the changes: Thank you very much Steve, all this sounds really nice. Now I can't wait for 7.1, I don't trust 7.0 enough to start a major campaign
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So we should be able to terraform planets with
0.05G now 0.025G to suit our needs, but when it comes to asteroids with similar gravity, we shouldn't because... realism?
Sorry, but no. I'd rather have more colonies.
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Aurora is a game at the end of the day, and I don't really see what is the problem is in allowing terraforming of bodies with a decent gravity. After all, the very fact of creating a gas atmosphere out of nowhere, not to mention the impossible gases (Anti greenshouse gas anyone? What's that?) is already science fiction. So technically you should not be able to terraform anything at all this way, according to current physics.
Helium may be useful as one if you could get enough of it. Otherwise sulphate aerosols would would work, pity about the acid rain, but it would also reduce precipitation (as well as the ozone layer) and give a white sky! An inert particulate aerosol may be a better choice.
Merry Christmas!!
Ian
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Clouds. Clouds are a great "anti-greenhouse gas". The clouds on Titan reflect enough sunlight to completely offset the greenhouse effect of all that methane.
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However, I really dislike the idea of making it possible to terraform asteroids and give them a breathable atmosphere. :-\
Asteroids can already be terraformed. The difference now is that you can put normal infrastructure on larger asteroids and create a populated colony.
As you mentioned, for Sol this would only affect a few asteroids. Vesta 0.026G, Pallas 0.022G and Euphrosyne 0.24G in the Mars - Jupiter belt and a dozen KBOs, the largest of which (2007 OR10) has a gravity of 0.051G. Bear in mind this is still a lot lower than normal human tolerance so you would have to invest 150,000+ RP on genetic engineering to establish a colony on Vesta.
Also, only 18 of 101 moons in Sol have gravity greater than 0.02G so we are talking about asteroids that are similar to larger moons rather than tiny irregular rocks.
This will be more useful for other systems that have particularly large asteroids. My current game has twenty-one asteroids (out of 29,000) that fall within normal human tolerance (0.1G), including four with higher gravity than Earth's moon.Two levels of genetic engineering on gravity will add forty-six more but you would still need to deal with temperature and creating an atmosphere.
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Regarding the changes: Thank you very much Steve, all this sounds really nice. Now I can't wait for 7.1, I don't trust 7.0 enough to start a major campaign
That's sensible. I intend to release v7.1 at some point this week. Just need to run it for a few hours to test the changes and fix anything else that pops up.
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Ugh, I'm getting the forum error so excuse me if the following makes no sense.
Steve your asteroid g numbers are off.
While Wikipedia isn't entirely reliable.
Pallas should be 0.022 g and, Euphrosyne 0.07
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That's sensible. I intend to release v7.1 at some point this week. Just need to run it for a few hours to test the changes and fix anything else that pops up.
Hmm now I wonder how much abuse I am in for when I cancel xmas due to...... 7.1 8)
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For what little it's worth, I agree that massive enough asteroids should be terraformable. However, I also believe that when development time and priorities permit there should be sensible limits to things like how much atmosphere a given celestial body can hold, along with sensible limits to things like population.
I'd also like to point out that the "it's only a game after all" argument is silly and leads to some quite silly things if followed to its logical conclusion. The idea that things should be added to Aurora just because they're fun and because it is, after all, only a game could lead to things like unicorns, space wizards, and motorcycle mice. Any and all of these things might be great for some games, but they would be very out of place in Aurora in my opinion. I feel as though part of Aurora's appeal, the thing that it does that most other games do not, is that it makes a reasonable attempt at simulation. The critical word there being "reasonable." There are a few necessary concessions, such as the whole trans-newtonian spiel, but those sorts of immersion-breaking things should be done when development priorities deem them a necessity. The sillier and more far-fetched things become, the more Aurora starts to lose its most appealing factor.
At the end of the day, it's a question of balancing development direction against development resources. Both of which are ultimately up to Steve.
+1 for terraformable asteroids on the grounds that any celestial body that is capable of holding an atmosphere should have options for adjusting said atmosphere.
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I'd also like to point out that the "it's only a game after all" argument is silly and leads to some quite silly things if followed to its logical conclusion. The idea that things should be added to Aurora just because they're fun and because it is, after all, only a game could lead to things like unicorns, space wizards, and motorcycle mice.
No it really could not, unless Steve losses his mind.
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Ugh, I'm getting the forum error so excuse me if the following makes no sense.
Steve your asteroid g numbers are off.
While Wikipedia isn't entirely reliable.
Pallas should be 0.022 g and, Euphrosyne 0.07
Pallas was a typo - missed a 0.
I don't think Euphrosyne can be 0.07G even if Wiki does state that. It is smaller and less massive than Vesta so it can't have higher gravity. I am now trying to find the source of my numbers :)
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That's my typo, I failed to correctly divide earths gravity by Euphro(etc)'s 0.069 meters per second. Should be somewhere around 0.007
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That's my typo, I failed to correctly divide earths gravity by Euphro(etc)'s 0.069 meters per second. Should be somewhere around 0.007
Yes, that matches Wiki. However, now I am wondering how I got the number I entered into the DB. I just know I am too OCD to let that rest until I find out :)
Anyway, I'll update it for v7.1
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If it works as intended then I will also add the possibility of independence due to high unrest.
DO NOT WANT
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Actually, I'm fine with this, and with whole 'independence' thing.
I'll just have to supplement colonies with Military after update, another minor logistical problem.
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I'm thinking we need more complex independence mechanics now.
Right now we have colonies that surrender at the drop of a hat, or they can declare independence if you don't install a couple of public relations cannons. Something in between might be nice. Maybe high unrest populations should require ground troops for pacification rather than ships in system or large PDCs on the ground?
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I think it's good as it is: troops only counter unrest but do not cure the reason for it.
So excited for these changes, please roll out 7.10 soon!
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I think it's good as it is: troops only counter unrest but do not cure the reason for it.
So excited for these changes, please roll out 7.10 soon!
In that case it's basically what I was asking for :p
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So excited for these changes, please roll out 7.10 soon!
I have to agree with this sentiment XD
Regarding troops, I think it's fine as it is now. Troops reduce unrest, but do not remove the cause. If they are removed, unrest will restart piling up.
Think of it as a martial law situation :) Civilians will not go out and protest while there are armed soldiers posted around...
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Hey, a big request here - using new "independence" mechanic, please make it possible to create NPR in this way, it is very needed for my RP, I believe many players here want to have only one Player race.
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I imagine that's planned, but needs extra work to make sure that the AI can handle the incredibly varied states in which it can revolt (particularly since unrest revolts are also planned, it would be very bad to have problems start because a planet the player has never seen revolted from a NPR). In the mean time it's entirely possible to remove the settlement and then create a new NPR in it's place (you'll probably end up with a few differences, but unless you have designer mode to edit the NPR's stuff then that's as close as you'll get, and you can even do this on the current version).
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Hey, a big request here - using new "independence" mechanic, please make it possible to create NPR in this way, it is very needed for my RP, I believe many players here want to have only one Player race.
The problem is that NPRs are programmed to be able to handle things within certain parameters. Their ship designs for example follow certain rules so as things stand, they wouldn't know what to do with a lot of player ship designs. It might be possible to update the designs in some way to make them compatible but there is a lot of work required (on that specific issue and in general) to convert a player race into an NPR.
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Some idea:
In my battle, it seems that AMM and fleet defence turret is a bit OP against ASM. Even with tech advantage, the only way to surely hit enemy ship is to spam and overwhelm the whole defence, especially when they have 200-300 ships in a single task group (I like high difficulty and large scale battle). So my ship design have to become beehive filled with ASM.
Also, my AMM usually have >100% hit chance against enemy ASM, so I only have to use AMM as defence, and the only real threat is enemy AMM spam, which is very annoying and time consuming.
My three advices:
1. AMM and CIWS hit chance penalty to huge task group. Just to prevent invincible death ball.
2. long range beam weapon. Another way to prevent invincible death ball and AMM spam.
3. new ECM/ECCM system. I hope ECM could actively jam missile in flight, or jam sensor on enemy ship. So simple AMM spam would lost track easily.
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My three advices:
1. AMM and CIWS hit chance penalty to huge task group. Just to prevent invincible death ball.
2. long range beam weapon. Another way to prevent invincible death ball and AMM spam.
3. new ECM/ECCM system. I hope ECM could actively jam missile in flight, or jam sensor on enemy ship. So simple AMM spam would lost track easily.
3 is the best solution. IMO, Aurora could be really improved by expanded electronic warfare options. 1 just forces players to split fleets into many smaller task groups, which is a headache to manage. 2 isn't feasible without developing faster than light beam weapons, as lasers currently have as long a range as anything can get within a given 5 second increment.
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How about an ECM/ ECCM system that takes into account how much and how powerful the sensor coverage overlapping the area is, missile and beam weapon detonations add to the confusion, more so for microwave and enhanced radiation warheads.
Even making it possible to confuse your own missiles or even active sensors by spamming too much ordnance in a small area or short time.
It would be pretty complex but I wonder if it's a possibility to simplify to the extent of adding slight increased strategy to current ECM without adding player confusion or micromanagement hell.
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...In my battle, it seems that AMM and fleet defence turret is a bit OP against ASM...
My three advices:
1. AMM and CIWS hit chance penalty to huge task group. Just to prevent invincible death ball.
2. long range beam weapon. Another way to prevent invincible death ball and AMM spam.
3. new ECM/ECCM system. I hope ECM could actively jam missile in flight, or jam sensor on enemy ship. So simple AMM spam would lost track easily.
The possibility of more range for Spinal Mount beams was discussed in the Spinal Mount & Fire Control: More Range, Please (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8112.0) thread.
1 just forces players to split fleets into many smaller task groups, which is a headache to manage. 2 isn't feasible without developing faster than light beam weapons, as lasers currently have as long a range as anything can get within a given 5 second increment.
Beams may not be able to travel faster than the speed of light. That would be silly. However, I don't see any real reason why the game couldn't keep track of a beam attack that lasts more than a single 5 second increment. IRL, light does travel more than 1.4mkm. It does not just disappear after reaching that distance. Same with projectiles.
In the Spinal Mount & Fire Control (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8112.0) thread, it was suggested to give Spinal Mount a new Fire Control different from regular Beams. It was also suggested to, maybe, give this new FC a reduced tracking speed. Perhaps, to reflect difficulty at tracking at that range and trying to predict/compensate for target movement.
...It would be pretty complex but I wonder if it's a possibility to simplify to the extent of adding slight increased strategy to current ECM without adding player confusion or micromanagement hell.
Giving Spinal Mount a bit more range would not add much to complexity or player confusion. And it would both make Spinal Mount much more useful and add variety to ship designs and combat strategy.
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To be honest, I always thought that excessive amount of AMM usage was bad. Especially offensively. It's a weapon conceived to destroy other missiles, it makes no sense how powerful it is if used against ships as well. Same goes for micro weapons, or weapons that do just 1 damage.
That brings me to the point, which is: how to make it a less than ideal weapon against larger targets, while still keeping it as a good weapon against missiles (or fighters or small crafts?)
Frankly, there are 2 possible solutions
1 - ECM and ECCM rework. There's many ways this could possibly go. It could be a heavier penalty against smaller missiles/weapons (because they don't have as much space for ECCM) or other things along that line
2 My favorite thing. That is, damage reduction from armor. Right now, any and all kind of armor work in the same way. Even the best type of armor in the game will take the full damage from any kind of weapon. A railgun will ALWAYS do its damage, even against futuristic materials with insane characteristic. An infrared laser will always do 1 damage to a section of armor, no matter if it's some Collapsium armor ( and no, I never researched up to that point). To be honest, a basic amount of damage resistance could be instilled into different types of armor.
Say, just to make an example, Composite armor bounces off 1 damage explosions or railguns or lasers. Basically it's a damage reduction of 1 for those weapons (some weapons like mesons would not be affected of course).
Before saying it's not realistic, consider that this is normal. Take a tank and a man with an assault rifle. He can shoot all day long but the bullets will just bounce off the tank. In Aurora it's not the same, you can apply quantity to overcome ANY amount of armor. Which is not realistic considering how insanely advanced the armor materials become. And yes, it would be a huge change. And yes, I know it's not likely to happen. But it WOULD solve the problem of AMM spam or small weapon spam against larger ships.
At any rate there's an even faster solution, which I use. That is, AMM can only hit missiles (and fighters). Period. If I have only AMM left, though luck my ships will die because I'll not shoot them at enemies...
All that said though, I think all this would be best left for 7.2. Considering how bugged 7.0 is, I hope Steve will release 7.1 soon and just leave any further gameplay change for later...
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To be honest, I'm against changing AMMs because they, in fact, seem rather balanced to me. They have their own advantages, disadvantages and counters (armor/shields).
You're comparing assault rifle and a tank with missile 6 times less strong than ICBM and a ship. It will deal some damage.
And yes, I'm against damage reduction. Research in armor already makes it more mass-effective (=more layers of armor), and your addition will make shields close to useless (in comparison to armor, at least), and railguns completely useless (whole point of railguns is "more damage at expense of penetration", and damage reduction will make them deal less damage than lasers).
Of course, AMMs may look perfect on paper, with overwhelming quantity and stuff. But they only deal 1 point of damage each, no shock damage, and they have terrible range.
Speaking of NPRs, the players AMMs are superior to NPRs ASM because they (NPRs) cannot make good missiles. They concentrate on range, neglecting speed and to-hit chance (that includes their AMMs too, sadly), but concentration on range makes missiles subpar at best.
As an example, I can show differences between my and certain spoiler's ASMs (from the v. 6.43, but you should still get the point).
My missile has 120kkm/s speed, 40mkm range and 16 maneouver rating.
Their missile has 51.8kkm/s speed, 1150.3mkm range and 10 (read: no mass for agility) maneouver rating.
Both missiles have solid AM drives, I checked.
My AMM has 100+% to-hit chance against spoiler missile, but only ~35-40% to-hit chance against my own missile. The difference is noticeable.
At any rate there's an even faster solution, which I use. That is, AMM can only hit missiles (and fighters). Period. If I have only AMM left, though luck my ships will die because I'll not shoot them at enemies...
And this is just silly. Why capitans suddenly shouldn't resort to the good old tactic of macross missile massacre? Even if that's macross anti-missile missile massacre.
Well, I mean, why they shouldn't be able to hit larger targets if they're able to hit smaller targets?
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Large ships with good armor should work vs lots of AAMs ys well, especially since they have no shock damage. In my last game I used 30kt cruiser with 12 or 15 armor as a vanguard during JP assaults. I dont recall the number of armor points on that one, but I think it was around 1k.
IMO the main point would be giving the NPRs better ships and missiles and making the NPRs adapt to AAM spam.
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With how the tech progression works, the higher your tech level the more accurate AMMs become vs an equivalent tech ASM. To the point where at very high tech levels AMMs tend to have 100% accuracy against themselves.
This is because of the agility stat; it provides a bonus to hit but not a bonus to defense, so every missile agility tech you research makes AMMs more accurate vs themselves (or other missiles of a similar tech level).
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And this is just silly. Why capitans suddenly shouldn't resort to the good old tactic of macross missile massacre? Even if that's macross anti-missile missile massacre.
With all due respects. I like to play this way, with most weapons in their own niche. I'm not much keen on minmaxing, I play to have fun. Consider it a house rule, if you will. You are entitled to your opinion and to play however you want. I'm not forcing my vision on anyone, just making a suggestion in case Steve ever plans to adjust AMM.
The problem is, this is a limitation of the Aurora engine. Because of how numbers work in aurora, the lowest possible warhead is 1. But in case of an AMM? You are using a small tactical nuke... to destroy an intercepted missile. Really? That's just overkill. If we were on earth, I'd expect a tactical nuke to sink a medium-sized ship, not to destroy a 5 meters long missile. Realistically an AMM would be smaller to be faster and more agile, and carry a significant lower payload, as far as I understand the numbers in Aurora.
Anyway, it is just my opinion and you can obviously disagree. But the problem is always the same in my opinion. The AI has limitations. Many players suggest AMM spam because the AI cannot deal with them, not bringing enough antimissile capabilities. I do not consider that minmaxing, I consider that "gaming the system". As in exploiting things that the AI cannot do well in order to gain an advantage. Perfectly legal, but not my cup of tea. Same with box launchers, which would be perfectly fine against a human opponent. But the AI cannot really adapt to fight against them and dies horribly. To me using something the AI cannot defend against is just not fun, and I play to have fun. So I impose limitations upon myself to increase my fun. Basically I try to have diverse fleets, just as I would have if I were playing against a human opponent.
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I'm not against mechanics changes like adding armour damage reduction or similar, however comparing Aurora level combat to modern warfare is useful in some ways, but the extreme energy levels and masses involved changes the scale and even basic mechanics significantly.
I'll start with my observations of modern tank design considering I've spent the last 6 months researching this area (mostly youtube, heh).
Firstly tanks aren't invincible, they all have significant weak points and even small arms can can cause a technical knockout by damaging essential systems like optics, tracks etc. easily repairable after a battle. WWII tanks usually had semi exposed and lightly armoured engine decks which could allow severe disabling with high calibre machine guns or Molotov cocktails. Side, rear, top and bottom armour is generally weak, but will defeat small arms easily.
The real armour is always on the front, on modern Tanks the turret face is especially thick. As this is the area that should be facing whatever you're firing at. I'll take the Abrams as an example, it's turret face is almost a metre thick with armour rated as being worth about 600-800 mms of standard steel armour plate vs a kinetic penetrator and 1300 mms vs high explosive anti tank.
Important to note is the round this tank fired contains a penetrator that's 600 mm long, essentially you need a projectile as long as the depth of the armour to achieve penetration. Range has a massive impact too, at 4km you get half the penetration.
Modern composite armour however is fragile and less likely to take repeated hits as solid steel like in WWII. But there are recorded instances on an Abrams taking dozens of RPG hits with the crew being safe, the tank was damaged beyond repair however. RPGs work somewhat differently to Kinetic penetrators however, relying on creating a high energy plasma of melted copper which operates like a cutting torch blowing a thin hole through steel. Composites do well against this.
Now off the derail, you mention armour damage resistance. Let's take WWII steel armour when hit there's 3 outcomes, deflection, partial penetration, and full penetration.
Deflection is a result of the angle the armour is at how hard the armour is and it's mass, Germans and sometimes the British used far harder armour than others which made it great at deflection, but brittle which had flaws.
Generally only undersized rounds, rounds fired ad extreme range or hits at high angle were deflected, but it was still significant to stop these rounds. Against the lighter armoured areas all these hits would possibly penetrate. Except for small arms which every part of a tank is usually well armoured against .
Partial penetration is what we're really interested in, what happens when a round that can't get through the armour hits? If the armour is well made you get a crater, even kinetic energy weapons release a decent quantity of heat at impact which deforms the plate around the shell. It may weld itself into the hole however, but another hit in the same spot might get through.
If the armour is brittle as the soviets found with late war german armour even a partial penetration might gouge a far larger chunk out, or even crack the armour.
Generally though armour damage is basically plastic deformation where armour basically melts out of the way and this is how I picture auroras armour to work.
The idea of damage absorption is rather flawed as either an impact is deflected or it actually damages the armour without getting through, Aurors does model this by having individual boxes that ablate away.
Consider the weapons we have, nuclear weapons, lasers, high energy rail guns, all these would turn armour into plasma at impact, in fact the nuclear weapon is the less effective weapon as it's energy isn't concentrated, The us army found that regular steel plate is very resistant to point blank detonations, ablating enough to protect itself from the heat. The physical shove of detonation is vastly more damaging.
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The problem is, this is a limitation of the Aurora engine. Because of how numbers work in aurora, the lowest possible warhead is 1. But in case of an AMM? You are using a small tactical nuke... to destroy an intercepted missile. Really? That's just overkill. If we were on earth, I'd expect a tactical nuke to sink a medium-sized ship, not to destroy a 5 meters long missile. Realistically an AMM would be smaller to be faster and more agile, and carry a significant lower payload, as far as I understand the numbers in Aurora.
Errrr ... That's not totally correct. During the Cold War there were nuclear capable SAM's to deal with strategic bombers and icbm's
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There's the nuclear mortars or hand held nuclear rockets if you only want to leave a small hole.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device)
Yielded 10-20 tons, the warhead was capable of going upto a kiloton but even the 20 ton would have a lethal range of 400 meters , the rocket could only fire 2km so it's pretty risky to use.
However considering a size 1 missile weight 2.5 tons but the smallest nuclear weapon ever in production only weighs 30 kilos it's pretty obviously possible to use small warheads for antimissiles.
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And this is just silly. Why capitans suddenly shouldn't resort to the good old tactic of macross missile massacre? Even if that's macross anti-missile missile massacre.
Well, I mean, why they shouldn't be able to hit larger targets if they're able to hit smaller targets?
Please remember the "no hitting" rule.
It sounded to me (confirmed by Zincat's later post) like Zincat wanted to add an "AMM"-type warhead to Aurora. In terms of ASM warheads, this would be strength 0. It would do zero damage to ship armor, but would be good enough to kill missiles. In his post he attributes this lack to engine mechanics; my recollection is that Steve has simply forbidden it (for a set of technical and game play complexities). Part of the reason for this is that missile size and RoF is (or at least was before the engine rewrites) proportional to warhead size. This means that 100x (strength 1/100 warhead) missiles were the same size/cost of 1x(strength 1 warhead) missile, which skews things in the direction of small missiles. If there were a fixed guidance-package cost added to missiles this would go away. This (a separate sector of AMM missiles) seems a reasonable choice for a different form of game mechanics.
On a side note for Zincat - IIRC Aurora armor used to work the way you propose. Strength-3 armor would sap away the first 3 hit points of any strike. I remember having an exploration ship (TFN Fluffy Bunny IIRC) blown away by aliens that were much higher-tech than me. I built a couple of heavily armored "turtle" beam ships and plinked them to death while their bullets bounced off me. In other words, that mode was waaaaay over-powered, which was motivation to swing to the ablative direction.
Back to AMM warheads: I it just occurred to me that, if Steve wanted to spend a bunch of time coding, he could introduce "Missile Warhead Points", which would be 1/20th of a normal damage point in the same way that a missile hull point is 1/20th of normal. This would presumably be combined with changes to missile armor (to make it resist missile warhead points, not regular warhead points, plus take advantage of armor tech) and some mechanism to prevent ultra-tiny missiles (e.g. a telemetry/guidance tech line that would be required for the missile to talk to fire control). "Warheadless" AMM that are allowed to kill un-armored missiles might also be worked in here - then missile warhead points would be intended to defeat missile armor.
Note that this wouldn't prevent using strength 1 ASM as AMM (the equivalent of the cold war nuclear AMM).
John
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I have not been around on this forum so much, so I did not know some of the things you wrote about how aurora worked before, or what Steve decided back then. Thanks for the information. I did not expect this much of a discussion. I'll try to explain better my views on the matter. They are all still just suggestions of course, based on my opinion.
Regarding the ablative vs deflective armor, I certainly do not suggest a completely deflective model. That would indeed be exploitable. But it is my opinion that the completely ablative model used now also has problems. Mainly, no matter how advanced the technologies become no weapon ever becomes completely obsolete.
Looking at the higher end armors, we have some pretty incredible and futuristic stuff there. I would expect that some armor named "Bonded superdense armor" would be capable of just shrugging off a tiny (damage 1) infrared laser, just to make an example. Or bouncing the smallest kind of railgun (damage 1 per shot also).
A possible proposal, considering we have 12 tiers of armor, could be: tier 1-4, 0 "deflection point". tier 4-8, 1 "deflection point". Tier 9-12, 2 "deflection points". This would be a small enough number not to create invincible ships, but would at least somewhat model the higher technology and encourage to build weapons a bit bigger.
This, and the fact I suggested AMM-only size 0 warheads (as you explained better than me >_> ) are tied. I think that size 1 missiles are somewhat imbalanced as they are now. The smaller the missiles are, the more survivability they have and the better their chance to hit. However this is a problem in my opinion because I can create a tiny weapon, which still serves as an AMM if I need it too, and which I can also use just as effectively against any kind of ship in range. And it never becomes obsolete (AMMs are FAST). And they still have a range many times that of any beam weapon or kinetic weapon..
Just my opinions of course, but I think that adding a little bit of deflection, and making AMM-only warheads, would remove imbalances and make weapons more balanced all around.
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Firstly, I am reasonably happy with the way that AMMs (or small ASM) function at the moment. They are dangerous in numbers but they lack range, penetration and the potential for shock damage. That doesn't mean I wouldn't change if I heard something that i believed would improve the game, just that I don't think there is an urgency to change.
One of the major factors to consider in any weapon mechanics is how the NPRs would deal with it. Having warships that can't damage some other ships is a complicating factor and was the main reason I eventually changed the Invaders tech. Also, the 'AMM spam' from defensive bases makes things hard for the player in some circumstances. I don't think having a ship that could sail through that with impunity makes for a good gaming experience.
In terms of very advanced armour having no bonus against AMMs, that isn't really the case. With advanced armour you get more armour boxes per hull space, so the 1-damage AMM is damaging less volume than before. As armour volume increases, the shock damage and penetration of larger warheads becomes even more important.
Another option, as mentioned earlier, is some type of guidance package that would take the place of the warhead for AMMs. However, it would probably make sense in that situation to build AMMs slightly larger and keep the warhead anyway to make them dual-use.
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Regarding the ablative vs deflective armor, I certainly do not suggest a completely deflective model.
Sorry - didn't mean to imply you did. I was mainly trying to point out that this (and many other issues in Aurora) has had the pendulum effect take place. The original design was too imbalanced towards impregnable armor; the next iteration towards ablative armor. The "shock damage" change was Steve's effort to pull the balance back towards the center, and based on his post above he's happy with it, so it's unlikely to change :)
Have fun,
John
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Also, the 'AMM spam' from defensive bases makes things hard for the player in some circumstances. I don't think having a ship that could sail through that with impunity makes for a good gaming experience.
Things are too easy for experienced player, like me, with overpowering AMM defence. NPR can't even touch my ship with higher tech missile, and the AMM spam is more annoying than real danger before my ship run out of ammo. Please give NPR something better than zerging and spam.
In current system, my most effective defence ship design become that. The first one is only a multi-purpose ship. If I did fill a 30Kt ship with nothing but AMM array and huge magazine, she will single-handly hold all missile attack from an NPR FLEET. Calculating who will run out of ammo first isn't a good gaming experience.
Build a beehive filled with ASM is effective against current NPR defence, but not interesting either.
Eclipse class GTA Corvette 20,000 tons 451 Crew 4354.48 BP TCS 400 TH 2000 EM 0
5000 km/s Armour 8-65 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 35 PPV 84
Maint Life 2.23 Years MSP 2041 AFR 213% IFR 3% 1YR 551 5YR 8270 Max Repair 500 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 1
Magazine 1917
1000 EP Internal Fusion Drive (2) Power 1000 Fuel Use 15% Signature 1000 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 1,500,000 Litres Range 90.0 billion km (208 days at full power)
Anti-Air Arty (2) Missile Size 4 Rate of Fire 20
Launch Pylon S6 (40) Missile Size 6 Hangar Reload 45 minutes MF Reload 7.5 hours
AMM Launcher (40) Missile Size 1 Rate of Fire 5
Raytheon Missile Fire Control FC513-R200 (2) Range 513.2m km Resolution 200
Raytheon AMM Control FC71-R1 (4) Range 71.3m km Resolution 1
Typhoon Torpedo (40) Speed: 50,000 km/s End: 97.7m Range: 293m km WH: 16 Size: 6 TH: 216/130/65
Hellfire II (40) Speed: 52,000 km/s End: 14.3m Range: 44.8m km WH: 9 Size: 3.846 TH: 450/270/135
Dart II AMM (1523) Speed: 60,000 km/s End: 2.8m Range: 10.1m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 760/456/228
Raytheon AMM Sensor MR69-R1 (1) GPS 384 Range 69.1m km MCR 7.5m km Resolution 1
ECCM-4 (2) ECM 40
Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
GTC Fenris II class Cruiser 10,000 tons 242 Crew 2536.5 BP TCS 200 TH 1250 EM 0
6250 km/s Armour 6-41 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 7 PPV 40.5
Maint Life 3.1 Years MSP 1110 AFR 114% IFR 1.6% 1YR 174 5YR 2609 Max Repair 312.5 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 20 months Spare Berths 1
Magazine 845
Lumion-III 625 EP MF Drive (2) Power 625 Fuel Use 22.5% Signature 625 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 750,000 Litres Range 60.0 billion km (111 days at full power)
Pulse Laser Turret (2x4) Range 60,000km TS: 25000 km/s Power 12-6 RM 7 ROF 10 3 3 3 3 3 3 0 0 0 0
AA Control (1) Max Range: 60,000 km TS: 25000 km/s 83 67 50 33 17 0 0 0 0 0
M.C.Fusion Reactor-6 (2) Total Power Output 12 Armour 0 Exp 16%
Missile Tube S1 (20) Missile Size 1 Rate of Fire 5
R&D AMM FC38 (2) Range 38.9m km Resolution 1
RAM-1A (845) Speed: 60,000 km/s End: 1.2m Range: 4.3m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 960/576/288
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Does the AI use armoured missile? Maybe missiles could be equipped with ECM lowering interception chance unless the AMM has ECCM
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Does the AI use armoured missile?
It doesn't matter as missile armour is only effective against laser. I don't think AI in Aurora is smart enough to correctly handle more complex design, as their current missile design is horrible.
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Things are too easy for experienced player, like me, with overpowering AMM defence. NPR can't even touch my ship with higher tech missile, and the AMM spam is more annoying than real danger before my ship run out of ammo. Please give NPR something better than zerging and spam.
In current system, my most effective defence ship design become that. The first one is only a multi-purpose ship. If I did fill a 30Kt ship with nothing but AMM array and huge magazine, she will single-handly hold all missile attack from an NPR FLEET. Calculating who will run out of ammo first isn't a good gaming experience.
Is the NPR you are fighting the same tech level? "higher tech missile" suggests they are not.
If so the issue that things are too easy probably has more to do with that you out-tech the NPR?
And if roles were reversed and the NPR had better tech, faster missiles and such, wouldn't you need "zerging and spam" to have any chance of winning against them? How would you beat them without it?
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Issues with the new promotion ratio for ground commanders:
Even when you just start out with 1 Military Academy, you can already get a division ground commander. Combined with that there are only 4 ranks to be had, I foresee that the masses of ground commanders will later get incredibly tightly pressed into the highest rank, as you might easily get 10-20 major generals now, with no one of higher merit to make chain of command clear. (you used to get only 2-3 highest commanders with 15-20 academies, which was fine)
This effect could be lessened by reducing the overall percentage of ground officers maybe. I must monitor how it really develops over longer game now though.
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Is the NPR you are fighting the same tech level? "higher tech missile" suggests they are not.
I think he meant the other way around, as in "NPR can't even touch my ship with their higher tech missile"
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Issues with the new promotion ratio for ground commanders:
Sorry to disagree with you, Vandermeer, bit to feed my hordes of divisions, the old 5:1 ratio was never sufficient. I am quite happy with the new 4:1 ratio.
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Sorry to disagree with you, Vandermeer, bit to feed my hordes of divisions, the old 5:1 ratio was never sufficient. I am quite happy with the new 4:1 ratio.
Agreed. Actually I'd like to see an Army Command Unit or similar for those rank 4 ground commanders that lets you group up divisions.
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Sorry to disagree with you, Vandermeer, bit to feed my hordes of divisions, the old 5:1 ratio was never sufficient. I am quite happy with the new 4:1 ratio.
Yeah, maybe it was to early to say something too. I'll have to see how it really works out once 15 academies stand.
However, I also never had shortage of high enough rank ground commanders before. MY problem was actually that there was too much navy command, and too few ground officers, because I featured over a hundred construction brigades along with about 14 regular divisions and some boarding crew in basically every game.
A huge army like that is actually quickly built late game, and still doesn't even eat 1% of your GDP, yet you are always out of officers for them.(still enough to man the division and brigade commands just fine though, so low ranks were short, not highs)
Anyway, my concern would've just been though that the lieutenant generals become too many. It would be weird to have like 12 kings who all rule equally. But I don't know yet if that really happens.
Agreed. Actually I'd like to see an Army Command Unit or similar for those rank 4 ground commanders that lets you group up divisions.
I want that too, because right now the highest rank only feels like honorifics if it doesn't entail some real regimen advantage. Would make loading them much easier as well.
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Agreed. Actually I'd like to see an Army Command Unit or similar for those rank 4 ground commanders that lets you group up divisions.
Motion seconded. I am currently doing Corps HQs of 4 Divs through RP, but that is not as satisfying as researching, building and employing real Corps HQs.
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If so the issue that things are too easy probably has more to do with that you out-tech the NPR?
And if roles were reversed and the NPR had better tech, faster missiles and such, wouldn't you need "zerging and spam" to have any chance of winning against them? How would you beat them without it?
I mean NPR have higher tech.
My attack ship design is a beehive loaded with 100 size 6 ASM launcher, multi-purpose ship has 40. One or two macross missile massacre is enough to take most NPR out, no need to send endless waves of AMM.
I also prepared some 100 WH surprise at jump point.
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Therefore in v7.10, asteroids with a gravity of at least 0.02G are treated like any other body when assessing colony cost. So now you will be able to establish normal populations on larger asteroids. They still won't have atmospheres but those could be added via terraforming.
As always when Steve expands colonization options I went ahead, started a new game and created a belter race with ideal gravity of 0.05g and tolerance of 0.049g. As expected the only bodies in the inner system they could live on were Ceres, Pallas and Vesta. And then I noticed that almost all moons of all the gas giants can be settled by them, because everything that isn't an asteroid doesn't have to have gravity higher than 0.02g to be colonizable.
This of course isn't the only current issue with regards how asteroids and moons are treated. Asteroid mining module works on any asteroid and nothing else. Have a one thousand kilometer body with gravity of 0.1g that is classified as an asteroid? Works like a charm. Have a hundred kilometer moon with gravity of 0.01g? Sorry, the orbital modules won't work.
I think asteroids should be treated the same way other bodies when it comes to colonization and such, effectively limiting the purpose of the classification to placement. Asteroid mining module should be renamed space mining module and should be working on anything with low enough gravity. Up until now I haven't suggested it as I didn't know how difficult or resource consuming it would be to make the gravity checks, but as the recent change shows it's not that difficult. This is of course just a personal opinion.
And many thanks for making the asteroids colonisable. Belter populations are fun.
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This of course isn't the only current issue with regards how asteroids and moons are treated. Asteroid mining module works on any asteroid and nothing else. Have a one thousand kilometer body with gravity of 0.1g that is classified as an asteroid? Works like a charm. Have a hundred kilometer moon with gravity of 0.01g? Sorry, the orbital modules won't work.
I think asteroids should be treated the same way other bodies when it comes to colonization and such, effectively limiting the purpose of the classification to placement. Asteroid mining module should be renamed space mining module and should be working on anything with low enough gravity. Up until now I haven't suggested it as I didn't know how difficult or resource consuming it would be to make the gravity checks, but as the recent change shows it's not that difficult.
Very good point.
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Asteroid mining module should be renamed space mining module and should be working on anything with low enough gravity. Up until now I haven't suggested it as I didn't know how difficult or resource consuming it would be to make the gravity checks, but as the recent change shows it's not that difficult. This is of course just a personal opinion.
And many thanks for making the asteroids colonisable. Belter populations are fun.
Yes, that would be more consistent. I will change this at some point.
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Those are two great changes, Steve. We really need a changelog discussion thread for 7.2 :)
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Asteroid mining module should be renamed space mining module and should be working on anything with low enough gravity.
I've been looking into this in more detail, using my campaign as an example as there are nearly four hundred systems. The question is where we draw the line for 'orbital mining modules' :). Lets assume 0.1G for starters.
Asteroids: 27,787. 22 are 0.1G or higher.
Moons: 14,112. 1,533 are 0.1G or higher.
Terrestrial Planets: 795. 8 are 0.1G or lower
Dwarf Planets: 456. 319 are 0.1G or lower
So setting to 0.1G would make all but the very largest asteroids available, almost 90% of moons and 70% of dwarf planets but very few terrestrial planets and no terrestrial moons (although about 20% of small terrestrial moons).
At 0.05G, we would have:
Asteroids: 27,787. 182 are 0.05G or higher.
Moons: 14,112, 2908 are 0.05G or higher
Terrestrial Planets: 795. One at 0.05G or lower
Dwarf Planets: 456. 161 are 0.1G or lower
Setting to 0.05G would make 99% of asteroids available, almost 80% of moons and 35% of dwarf planets but essentially no terrestrial planets or terrestrial moons
A third option would be to start with 0.05G and have tech to raise it.
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I am always a fan of tech progressions.
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Of those two, .05g seems reasonable to me (when I imagine asteroid mining, I picture them basically knocking rocks loose, possibly with lasers). I'll second that the tech progression path sounds really cool though.
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Tech progression sounds good, maybe even start lower than .05 and raise it opening up new sites.
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Of those two, .05g seems reasonable to me (when I imagine asteroid mining, I picture them basically knocking rocks loose, possibly with lasers). I'll second that the tech progression path sounds really cool though.
The things is the amount of minerals on the body is dependent on the size of the body. The smaller the body the less minerals it has and the less useful orbital mining module becomes. So while realistically it should be useful only on very low gravity bodies (below 0.02g for example) it would make them almost useless and I'd rather avoid another 'dead' technology like orbital habitats or underground infrastructure, which are great concepts but not economically viable.
All that being said 0.05g is still reasonable as it would cover most dwarf planets in the Sol system, which can have deposits around 200k tonnes of several minerals, which is quite reasonable (although it can still be exhausted in a single campaign several times over). Pluto and Eris would be out however.
As a personal opinion I think orbital mining modules should start at 0.03 with technology increasing the cap by 0.01g until it reaches 0.1g. If we use mining technology as a baseline, the cost would be 3k RP for 0.04g, 5k RP for 0.05g, 10k RP for 0.06g, 20k RP for 0.07g, 40k RP for 0.08g, 80k RP for 0.09g and 150k RP for 0.01g. This would make it quite realistic in the short term and very viable method of mining in the long term.
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The things is the amount of minerals on the body is dependent on the size of the body. The smaller the body the less minerals it has and the less useful orbital mining module becomes. So while realistically it should be useful only on very low gravity bodies (below 0.02g for example) it would make them almost useless and I'd rather avoid another 'dead' technology like orbital habitats or underground infrastructure, which are great concepts but not economically viable.
All that being said 0.05g is still reasonable as it would cover most dwarf planets in the Sol system, which can have deposits around 200k tonnes of several minerals, which is quite reasonable (although it can still be exhausted in a single campaign several times over). Pluto and Eris would be out however.
As a personal opinion I think orbital mining modules should start at 0.03 with technology increasing the cap by 0.01g until it reaches 0.1g. If we use mining technology as a baseline, the cost would be 3k RP for 0.04g, 5k RP for 0.05g, 10k RP for 0.06g, 20k RP for 0.07g, 40k RP for 0.08g, 80k RP for 0.09g and 150k RP for 0.01g. This would make it quite realistic in the short term and very viable method of mining in the long term.
I could get behind this.
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Sounds good.
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The things is the amount of minerals on the body is dependent on the size of the body. The smaller the body the less minerals it has and the less useful orbital mining module becomes. So while realistically it should be useful only on very low gravity bodies (below 0.02g for example) it would make them almost useless and I'd rather avoid another 'dead' technology like orbital habitats or underground infrastructure, which are great concepts but not economically viable.
Agree the point about 'more minerals on higher gravity bodies'. Before the original posting I checked what the gravity of asteroids actually being mined and they were in the 0.02G - 0.1G range, so I think the tech progression concept you outlined is probably in the right ballpark.
With regard to orbital habitats, this is the original post: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=2631.0
The key paragraph is:
Troop Transport Bays are probably the most realistic starting point for comparison as they are a self-contained module in which troops will live for months at a time. They are 50 HS and support 500 troops and their equipment, which is 10 people per HS, or 1 person per 5 tons. Civilians probably need more living space but don't have the same amount of equipment so it probably balances out, leaving us with 10 people per HS as a basis for hab modules. Using 50,000 people as the baseline, as that is the number required for a basic factory, that gives us a hab module size of 5000 HS, or 250,000 tons. Obviously that seems huge but it is probably on the small side given the number of people. However, huge doesn't necessarily mean expensive. The hab module is essentially just a living space and has no requirement for the structural integrity that would be associated with military systems or those needed to transport heavy cargo. Therefore the cost can be relatively low, especially given the economies of scale that would be involved. The cryogenic module that supports 10,000 frozen colonists is 100 BP. I going to fix the hab module cost at 200 BP, or 2x as much. Partly because freezing people and keeping them alive would be harder than just warming a huge living complex so there is some justification on costs grounds. Secondly, and more importantly, making it more expensive than this would probably make the hab module too expensive within Aurora's economic model. In the end, fun game play has to take precedence over physics as long as I can maintain internal consistency. Thirdly, as part of justifying the relatively low cost and making my life much easier in other areas (more on this later), the orbital habitat can only support inhabitants when it is in orbit. Due to its lightweight structure, it cannot be used as an extra-large colony ship. It can be towed from planet to planet but will automatically leave behind any colonists on board.
I've been playing around with orbital habitats for the Caliphate in my current game and I agree they are difficult to justify economically. Perfect for interesting start-ups but not ideal to create mid-game. So we need to find a way to make them either cheaper or larger while maintaining internal consistency within the game. For example, one option is to assume that while orbital habs are 250,000 tons that is spread over a much greater volume than would normal for a warship. A US carrier is around 100,000 tons and has a crew of perhaps 5000. However, if you took the materials that went into that carrier and used them to build accommodation only, you could create a much larger structure, albeit it with the same mass. I'm a little concerned about the precedent because mass and volume have always been equal in Aurora for the sake of simplicity but given the sheer size of orbital habitats that is probably OK. On this basis, the mass and cost could stay the same and the capacity is increased,
Another option could be that structures with multiple habitat modules create a multiplier to accommodation space. This is a similar principle that used by armour in that if ship A is twice as large as ship B it doesn't need twice as much armour volume to cover the same depth. If we assume that each extra hab module increase overall space by a set amount (say 50%) then five modules would have their total capacity multiplied by 250%.
Open to other suggestions. Also on UI, which I haven't used as much.
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Would there be a way to also make a deep space station? One game of mine stands out for this and The Moat in yours isn't too far off. Wolf 365, or something similar was two jumps away from Sol and was just a star with nothing orbiting it, however it had something like eight jump points and it quickly became the most traveled in system in my empire. At one point it was even the staging area for two fronts in different wars. That would have been perfect for an armed resumption and refueling station but shy of building a huge ship and just sitting it at some way point there really didn't seem to be a good way to have such a station. It sounds like the Commonwealth's system The Moat in Colonial Wars may end up with a similar role, albeit in most likely a smaller role.
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Would there be a way to also make a deep space station? One game of mine stands out for this and The Moat in yours isn't too far off. Wolf 365, or something similar was two jumps away from Sol and was just a star with nothing orbiting it, however it had something like eight jump points and it quickly became the most traveled in system in my empire. At one point it was even the staging area for two fronts in different wars. That would have been perfect for an armed resumption and refueling station but shy of building a huge ship and just sitting it at some way point there really didn't seem to be a good way to have such a station. It sounds like the Commonwealth's system The Moat in Colonial Wars may end up with a similar role, albeit in most likely a smaller role.
The problem is connected to the way the program is written. All populations are based on system bodies and everything that deals with populations expects that body to exist. It may be possible to have some way of towing a small asteroid to where you need it.
However, I suspect what is really needed is some way to maintain ships in deep space, rather than a full blown population. If we had a ship that could maintain other ships in the same location, that would probably be all that was needed. Beyond that, repair ships are already possible (just a ship with a large hangar) as are recreational modules to allow shore leave, while fuel and munitions can already be based in deep space.
Maintenance modules already exist. All I need to do is make them work in deep space. Would that suffice for what you need?
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Deep space maintenance stations sound good to me.
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Open to other suggestions. Also on UI, which I haven't used as much.
I think that before we decide how to tackle the capacity per size issue, we should first decide what the orbital habitat modules should cost. Let's start by checking how much normal infrastructure cost, as so far I haven't seen anyone complaining that it is too expensive.
The infrastructure is very simple to build and costs two duranium per unit, no more no less. On Mars this translates to four hundred duranium per million people and, by extension, to four hundred build points for every million of people. As orbital habitats allow you to build colonies everywhere and they do not require any population for agriculture and life support, one could argue that two thousand BP for a million colonists is reasonable. Currently it costs two hundred BP for fifty thousand people or four thousand BP for a million colonists not counting life support, bridge and armour (it is a ship after all). Overall when I try to build it in aurora, using composite armour technology, I have to spend 6808 BP for a habitat for one million people, or thirty four times as much as I would have to pay for infrastructure on Mars for this many people. By expending orbital habitat module capacity to 250 000 people without changing cost I would have to pay about seven times as much as I would have to pay for infrastructure. That could be more or less considered reasonable.
There is a catch however. You get free infrastructure from civilian sector. A lot of it. Which you can use however you want. In most of my games I would guess no more than one tenth of the infrastructure in play is made by my factories, with all the rest coming from civilians. If that is correct, than even by increasing the orbital habitat module capacity fivefold, I'd still end up paying seventy times as much for space for one million colonists as I would have to pay if I was using infrastructure. That's a pretty steep price.
To be honest I'm not sure how to deal with the issue. Making orbital habitats cheaper than infrastructure would be just wrong, but the fact you can get so much of it for free form the civilian shipping lines is undeniable. On the other hand the habitats are not supposed to replace normal colonization, so they should be more expensive, but not to such a large degree I think. Overall I'd say the right cost would be one thousand BP for one million people for habitats, but that after including armour, living spaces and such. That would require the current cost to be reduced to twenty BP per fifty thousand people. In most of my games that would mean my factories would have to work for a year to create enough habitats for five million people, which is enough to support a hundred mines or factories, if my memory serves. If so creating a colony on Venus for four hundred mines (as an example) would require eight years or so for both habitats and mines, which seems just right. It is of course only my opinion and all of the numbers here are highly speculative and very much dependent on the play style of the particular person.
One thing about modifying the size of the habitats - they need to be towed to their target location, which means they cannot be too large or making a tug for them will be very difficult.
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You're looking at it from a wrong angle: you shouldn't make OH an attractive alternative to infrastructure - OH should be used when using infrastructure is pointless or really difficult. Venus is a good example because no matter how much "free" infra your civilian sector produces, majority of the population on Venus will always be tied down to maintaining it thanks to the high colony cost.
But the real problem is that there is no need for population on Venus in the first place because we have automated mines. It's them that take away need for orbital habitats. Only if you make the cost of a manned mine and the OH that works it cheaper than an automated mine, will the problem go away. At that point players will only use automated mines because they lack workers or they are rich enough to avoid the hassle of placing OHs and moving population there.
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I think that before we decide how to tackle the capacity per size issue, we should first decide what the orbital habitat modules should cost. Let's start by checking how much normal infrastructure cost, as so far I haven't seen anyone complaining that it is too expensive.
The infrastructure is very simple to build and costs two duranium per unit, no more no less. On Mars this translates to four hundred duranium per million people and, by extension, to four hundred build points for every million of people. As orbital habitats allow you to build colonies everywhere and they do not require any population for agriculture and life support, one could argue that two thousand BP for a million colonists is reasonable. Currently it costs two hundred BP for fifty thousand people or four thousand BP for a million colonists not counting life support, bridge and armour (it is a ship after all). Overall when I try to build it in aurora, using composite armour technology, I have to spend 6808 BP for a habitat for one million people, or thirty four times as much as I would have to pay for infrastructure on Mars for this many people. By expending orbital habitat module capacity to 250 000 people without changing cost I would have to pay about seven times as much as I would have to pay for infrastructure. That could be more or less considered reasonable.
There is a catch however. You get free infrastructure from civilian sector. A lot of it. Which you can use however you want. In most of my games I would guess no more than one tenth of the infrastructure in play is made by my factories, with all the rest coming from civilians. If that is correct, than even by increasing the orbital habitat module capacity fivefold, I'd still end up paying seventy times as much for space for one million colonists as I would have to pay if I was using infrastructure. That's a pretty steep price.
To be honest I'm not sure how to deal with the issue. Making orbital habitats cheaper than infrastructure would be just wrong, but the fact you can get so much of it for free form the civilian shipping lines is undeniable. On the other hand the habitats are not supposed to replace normal colonization, so they should be more expensive, but not to such a large degree I think. Overall I'd say the right cost would be one thousand BP for one million people for habitats, but that after including armour, living spaces and such. That would require the current cost to be reduced to twenty BP per fifty thousand people. In most of my games that would mean my factories would have to work for a year to create enough habitats for five million people, which is enough to support a hundred mines or factories, if my memory serves. If so creating a colony on Venus for four hundred mines (as an example) would require eight years or so for both habitats and mines, which seems just right. It is of course only my opinion and all of the numbers here are highly speculative and very much dependent on the play style of the particular person.
One thing about modifying the size of the habitats - they need to be towed to their target location, which means they cannot be too large or making a tug for them will be very difficult.
Excellent point about the free infrastructure from civs.
Lets use your number of "one thousand BP for one million people for habitats", that is 25% of the current cost and you would still have the cost of the armour (I know you mentioned 1000 including armour). However, if we reduce the cost of the habitat but keep the same size, the armour becomes the primary cost.I have a 1m pop habitat as 6836, with 4000 BP for the habitats and 2610 BP for the armour. If we reduce the cost of the habitat to 1000 BP, the armour is still 2610 BP. So we are very limited in terms of cost reduction because the armour is the issue.
Instead, lets use my aircraft carrier analogy and increase the capacity on the assumption the volume is greater than an equivalent mass ship and the armour is spread more thinly. If we assume 250,000 colonists per 250,000 ton habitat and keep the cost the same that gives us a million ton habitat for our million people at a cost of 1782. A habitat for five million colonists would be five million tons and cost 6836, so larger habitats bring the cost down.
However, the real issue is the armour. Perhaps the solution is a new type of 'armour' for habitats. The question becomes why it would only be used on habitats? In fact, it could be a new armour that is only suitable for objects that don't move under their own power and can only be 1 thickness, so you could also use for deep space stations, etc. A combination of 'habitat armour' and increased capacity should solve the problem.
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You're looking at it from a wrong angle: you shouldn't make OH an attractive alternative to infrastructure - OH should be used when using infrastructure is pointless or really difficult. Venus is a good example because no matter how much "free" infra your civilian sector produces, majority of the population on Venus will always be tied down to maintaining it thanks to the high colony cost.
But the real problem is that there is no need for population on Venus in the first place because we have automated mines. It's them that take away need for orbital habitats. Only if you make the cost of a manned mine and the OH that works it cheaper than an automated mine, will the problem go away. At that point players will only use automated mines because they lack workers or they are rich enough to avoid the hassle of placing OHs and moving population there.
There are other uses. In my current campaign the Caliphate is short of suitable colony sites because they have been grabbed by other powers and the Caliphate cannot take them by force due to the recent unfortunate loss of its navy :). Therefore it is looking to create an actual functioning colony, rather than just a mining site. Automated mines are also a lot easier to move around than orbital habitats, although I agree we have to be careful not to make OH + mines an obviously better option than automated mines
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However, the real issue is the armour. Perhaps the solution is a new type of 'armour' for habitats. The question becomes why it would only be used on habitats? In fact, it could be a new armour that is only suitable for objects that don't move under their own power and can only be 1 thickness, so you could also use for deep space stations, etc. A combination of 'habitat armour' and increased capacity should solve the problem.
I think that would work great.
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Open to other suggestions. Also on UI, which I haven't used as much.
I've used UI once, it was to turn an asteroid into a on-ground fleet base because it was the best way to defend. I used construction battalions to build it, and the biggest (huge, frankly) problem was that I couldn't stop civilian colony ships from dropping off millions of people to their deaths on it, constantly, year after year, until the population hit 25 million.
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On the subject of both orbital habitats, underground infrastructure, and mining ships, would it be worth considering making automated mines more expensive as an alternative to trying to make those cheaper? I know I don't bother with either because it's so much easier just to build several hundred automated mines and drop them in place.
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On the subject of both orbital habitats, underground infrastructure, and mining ships, would it be worth considering making automated mines more expensive as an alternative to trying to make those cheaper? I know I don't bother with either because it's so much easier just to build several hundred automated mines and drop them in place.
The thing is that automated mines are already plenty expensive at least in my opinion. Maybe I'm just not lucky with resources, but supplying my world with TN elements after the homeworld runs dry is usually quite a hassle and I have to use automated mines often. Being only twice as expensive as normal mines may not seem like much, but it is especially since you start with not a single one - all automated mines have to be built from nothing or by modifying manned complexes, which is cheaper but consumes time and resources without actually increasing your mining capacity. Last but not least for me it's not only about mining. I'm primarily a builder and from the very beginning Aurora captivated me with the number of bodies in existence. I want to be able to use as many of them as possible for RP reasons. I want to have belters floating among the asteroids, I want to make Triton habitable just because I can, I want to have outcasts hiding and living in orbital habitats in the Kuiper belt. I can set this up at the beginning but due to the costs I can neither build nor expand it during the game. Which is why I'm so passionate about the topic. I want cheaper orbital habitats so I can create whole civilizations where there were none.
Which reminds me I haven't commented on underground infrastructure. The biggest issue that makes the whole thing useless is that the reduction in colonization cost technology does not apply to UI. Once it does you can use R&D to lower UI requirement per million people to half of what it is, although it is admittedly very expensive. Other than that I'd love to see reduced price, preferably to three or four BP per unit. As you need 1.5 as much UI as normal infrastructure for million people (on Mars at least) than reducing cost to 4 BP would still make normal infrastructure cheaper on anything with colony cost 6 or less.
One other potential tweak to UI. I can get behind the idea it has to be build in place and you cannot use civilian shipping lines to transport it. That is reasonable considering what it's supposed to be and how much wider use it has. However it is difficult to believe that civilians living in such an underground city cramped like sardines would not try to help themselves. In case of infrastructure if colony is at its limit the civilian production of the colony would be automatically added, effectively making the colony expand itself. Something like this could be done for the UI, albeit on a lesser scale of course.
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Fair point about raising the cost of automated mines.
I do have one thought on orbital habitats, but it's more a coding/convenience one. IIRC, right now if you build an orbital habitat colony and fill it with colonists, then tow it somewhere else, the colonists get left behind (and probably die). How hard would it be to change that so that colonists will stay on an orbital habitat when it's towed to a new world? They don't have to continue producing money or growing in number or anything, but even if it just automatically treated them as in cryogenic suspension that would make orbital habitats handy as a sort of mobile colony.
On the other hand, that sounds like it might be a more tricky coding change. Maybe just give the habitat built in cryo support for as many colonists as it can hold, even if you have to order it to "load" its colonists before it can leave the planet and unload them when it arrives?
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Nice to see the changes about the orbital habitats. But the part about a deep space permanent station, however that is achieved, that's what makes my mouth water.
I would love to be able to put some permanent station in empty systems and the like. Like you see in so many science fiction setting. That would be so nice.
Regarding automated mines, they are rather costly, yes. But to be honest in my opinion they are still too convenient. They are so convenient, instead of all the trouble of managing a colony that can provide for them, that in my opinion they are still much more cost effective that normal mines. You don't really have to defend them, they don't cost upkeep, they can't revolt and don't need a garrison. So you can't really say they are too expensive. You should not look only at the cost to build them....
Still the new orbital habitat + mine solution seems nice. We'll see how it pans out. As I'm much more roleplaying oriented than mechanics oriented, I love what I'm seeing.
About UI. This one is tricky. I like it very very much from a RP perspective, and I mostly play for that so... Still it has 2 problems in my opinion. Yes it's costly but I don't care much about that.
1 - It's really, really, really slow to build. Did I mention it's slow to build? After you build some then you can bring factories and such, but still... It takes a lot of time to start out, or a LOT of construction brigades.
2- It is underground but as far as I know there's no advantage for that. I mean, aside of the cost, from a roleplay perspective an underground city should be more resistant to bombardment, safer from radiation, it should have a lower EM/thermal emission rating... Building underground does provide some advantages! Yet I don't think the game models that at all...
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Regarding automated mines, they are rather costly, yes. But to be honest in my opinion they are still too convenient. They are so convenient, instead of all the trouble of managing a colony that can provide for them, that in my opinion they are still much more cost effective that normal mines. You don't really have to defend them, they don't cost upkeep, they can't revolt and don't need a garrison. So you can't really say they are too expensive. You should not look only at the cost to build them....
This.
The only reason to use anything other than automated mines is either RP or really specialized game-specific context, like Steve and Haji described, which frankly are pretty rare. I'm very glad that there are multiple options and I'll gladly use them but the problem isn't that OH's are too expensive or that UI is slow to build, just that auto-mines are "cheap enough" and so damn convenient.
Having OH not use the regular ship armour would certainly make it cheaper and thus a slightly better option but unless auto-mines get their price hiked up or OHs become almost free, the basic priority/advantage issue between will not change.
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Having OH not use the regular ship armour would certainly make it cheaper and thus a slightly better option but unless auto-mines get their price hiked up or OHs become almost free, the basic priority/advantage issue between will not change.
The example of a new orbital habitat shown by Steve in change log for 7.2 thread can support one million people which is enough to support sixteen mines. The habitats itself costs 1200 BP (approximately). Sixteen mines cost 120*16=1920BP for a total cost of 3120BP. For comparison 16 automated mines cost 16*240=3840BP.
Of course as the size of the colony increases, so does the service sector, proportionally. At ten million people the habitats could support 136 manned mines. The total cost would be 28320BP. For comparison 136 automated mines would cost 32640BP. So automated mines are still more expensive option, not even counting the fact that a manned colony produces taxes and trade goods.
At twenty five million people a colony can support three hundred and one mining complexes. The total cost is 66120BP. For comparison automated mines would cost 72240BP. Still more expensive.
To be honest I don't know how Aurora tackles the relationship between manufacturing sector percentages and total population, so I'm not sure where the breaking point is, although I'm pretty sure that with large enough colony automated mines will be cheaper once again. After all at some point only twenty five percent of total population will be able to man mines, while at twenty five million people sixty percent are available for government work. But for medium sized mining outposts operating 300-400 mines orbital habitats will be cheaper option already with the new 7.2 patch. Which for me is fantastic news.
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I have not done the calculations, but you are surely correct, based on cost alone.
But as I said that's just a small part of the whole, we're not just talking profitability here. Automated mines don't revolt, don't need garrisons, are more or less safe from attacks, can be moved at whim in case a system becomes not secure, or a planet's reserves of mineral dry up. Basically, they are logistically extremely simple to support.
Not so a colony, which has to be defended, manned, garrisoned and most importantly cannot be easily relocated for whatever reason.
With automated mines instead, once you built them you're basically done and the investment keeps reaping benefits forever. That is why I say they are the most cost effective.
At any rate, I mostly roleplay so it's not a problem for me and I'm happy about the new OH changes. just saying that in my opinion automated mines are, if anything, too cheap.
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I've always liked the idea that population in UI would be shielded from negative pop growth or bombardment. Say radiation has reduced a population to -12% growth, but there's enough UI to hold 5% of the population, for negative pop growth calculations that 5% of the pop is simply ignored, negative growth then becomes -11.4% not a major difference, but once the population falls or if more UI is made eventually growth will stop at 0%.
Hostile systems could be entirely colonised with UI for protection, or you coukd hastily make it on earth if it's bombarded.
Orbital habitats should also get the same mechanics, of course they're easily blown out of the sky anyway.
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Now I'm tempted to try playing a game without any automated mines, for RP reasons.
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To be honest I don't know how Aurora tackles the relationship between manufacturing sector percentages and total population, so I'm not sure where the breaking point is.
I have tried it, the breaking point is between 300-500 million people.
In one campaign I made a Mars mining colony, shipped more than one thouand mines and so many people onto it, but the efficiency never rise above 70%, as all of newly arrived people turn to service.
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Anyone have better idea about permanent fuel harvester station? This design works well, but really hard to relocate. As OH and rec module are too large, use less harvest module don't help.
North Carolina class Fuel Harvester 2,107,700 tons 7235 Crew 43638 BP TCS 42154 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s Armour 8-1464 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 40 PPV 0
MSP 518 Max Repair 30 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 0
Habitation Capacity 50,000
Recreational Facilities
Fuel Harvester: 600 modules producing 38400000 litres per annum
Fuel Capacity 200,000,000 Litres Range N/A
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as an Orbital Habitat for construction purposes
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Maintenance modules already exist. All I need to do is make them work in deep space. Would that suffice for what you need?
I am sure you would make a bunch of sci-fi simulationist players and occasional nomad style gamists very happy with that solution. There was always an urge for the concept of deep space bases, and we had so many ideas for bridging the gap of missing maintenance there with things like truly big hangars (since they also revitalize the clock) with exchangable modules, who would fly back for maintenance while being replaced by an identical module in time (essentially forcing to build everything double), or like me with just a massive civil swarm fleet that would deposit resource, population and shipyards for all military on locations after some transit time.
Deep space fit maintenance modules would void all those interpretation dances, and directly give us the tools that can finally paint all that fiction.
Don't forget to include perpetuum mobile for them then though: They need to be able to maintain themselves, or they stay useless for those stationary base or "Galactica" concepts still.
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As I already stated on the bay 12 forum, the rec facility is mostly redundant because if the habitat, your best bet is to half the size of the platform and make 2. Or just bigger tugs and patience.
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As I already stated on the bay 12 forum, the rec facility is mostly redundant because if the habitat, your best bet is to half the size of the platform and make 2. Or just bigger tugs and patience.
I thought I had a specific use for it, long-deployment task forces in systems that are combat zones and reposition strategically as a matter of course.
Then somebody just shot the darned thing.
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As I already stated on the bay 12 forum, the rec facility is mostly redundant because if the habitat, your best bet is to half the size of the platform and make 2. Or just bigger tugs and patience.
Without rec facility, morale continue dropping. Do I have to fill the colony module with people?
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Without rec facility, morale continue dropping. Do I have to fill the colony module with people?
I'm an idiot, you do need the rec facilities, since you can't make a colony at a gas giant.
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The problem is connected to the way the program is written. All populations are based on system bodies and everything that deals with populations expects that body to exist. It may be possible to have some way of towing a small asteroid to where you need it.
Someone posted a good idea about this in another thread a week or so ago: have a button (presumably in SM) that adds a system body at a location (similar to adding a waypoint). So the workflow would be to add a system body (small asteroid) at the desired location then construct an orbital habitat from that. This seems like a change that wouldn't be too hard to code up....
John
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Someone posted a good idea about this in another thread a week or so ago: have a button (presumably in SM) that adds a system body at a location (similar to adding a waypoint). So the workflow would be to add a system body (small asteroid) at the desired location then construct an orbital habitat from that. This seems like a change that wouldn't be too hard to code up....
John
I have considered that in the past. However, I'm not sure that I want lone asteroids appearing in the middle of planetless systems. Could cause an issue with suspension of disbelief. I have a way in mind to have the deep space stations working (at least for supplying and maintaining ships).
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I've wanted sonething similar for a while just to custom tailor systems, say to suit settings based on sci if titles. However possibly that's already possible with designer mode? I've never seen it myself but it makes more sense to be sonething you can't change during a game.
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The problem is connected to the way the program is written. All populations are based on system bodies and everything that deals with populations expects that body to exist. It may be possible to have some way of towing a small asteroid to where you need it.
However, I suspect what is really needed is some way to maintain ships in deep space, rather than a full blown population. If we had a ship that could maintain other ships in the same location, that would probably be all that was needed. Beyond that, repair ships are already possible (just a ship with a large hangar) as are recreational modules to allow shore leave, while fuel and munitions can already be based in deep space.
Maintenance modules already exist. All I need to do is make them work in deep space. Would that suffice for what you need?
Yeah. Especially with the new no armor option for ships. A recreation module, and a maintenance module that can work in deep space would be great. It would be expensive as all hell but that's part of the charm, having it be something you only make when it would really be worth it and facing a later possibility of moving it rather than building a second one.
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About the automines, habitats etc. . .
I think this isn't issue of costs, it's an issue of availability - by which I mean that automines and mass drivers are so damn convenient that having them available at all instantly makes other mining technologies obsolete and pointless. It doesn't really matter whether automines are 20 %, 100 % or even 300 % more expensive than habitats - they are simply so good that I am willing to accept the cost. They will always be the better choice.
It all comes down to what Zincat says:
Not so a colony, which has to be defended, manned, garrisoned and most importantly cannot be easily relocated for whatever reason.
Imagine you had to (1) use only manned mines and (2) transport everything back home in freighters. This requires huuuuuge logistic chains with shipyards, freighters, tugs, fuel refineries, military for defence etc. etc. These are complex systems prone to cause troubles. But the moment you can build automines and mass drivers, this enables you to skip logistics almost completely. No longer you have a complex system that needs to be maintained, it has been magically handwawed away. Mining becomes "fire and forget". So convenient.
Imagine the game instead worked like this:
- In the early game you can only build manned mined and you don't have mass drivers so you need to transport everything manually.
- Later, "asteroid mining modules" become available which eliminates some trouble with setting up colonies and allows at least some automation.
- Even later, you can research automines, which have asteroid mining modules as prerequisites and are very expensive in RP. That's because they make the previous options effectively obsolete.
In a separate research chain:
- At some point mid-game you can research early mass drivers. There are extremely expensive to build (or perhaps have certain requirements for the system body?) so they are ineffective to build at every moon and asteroid. Instead, you build one for example in the whole Jovian subsystem and then use freighters to shuttle minerals from nearby moons to the mass driver.
- Only in late game, mass drivers become cheap enough (or the requirements become loose enough) so that you can build them everywhere.
The overall effect:
- Early game civilizations have to rely on massive logistic chains based on freighters and manned outposts. Slowly as the technology progresses (and your empire grows), this becomes more hands-off and automated. Only in late game (with a large empire) you will have fully automated chains with mass drivers and automines.
Obviously, this is all very much IMHO. But I am convinced that automines especially, and mass drivers to a lesser extent, are simply so good that players will rarely have reason to use anything else. These two technologies together are making many other game mechanics useless, and in extension, making the game less interesting. Which is exacerbated by the fact that they are freely available from the beginning.
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I think this isn't issue of costs, it's an issue of availability - by which I mean that automines and mass drivers are so damn convenient that having them available at all instantly makes other mining technologies obsolete and pointless. It doesn't really matter whether automines are 20 %, 100 % or even 300 % more expensive than habitats - they are simply so good that I am willing to accept the cost. They will always be the better choice.
That's not an issue of mechanics, that's an issue of playstyle. And any good game allows various people to play properly using different playstyles. If you find orbital habitats so tedious/clumsy that you'd rather use more expensive option that's fine. If I'm going to be using orbital habitats everywhere no matter the logic that's also fine. By the end of the day the cost reduction made orbital habitats useful and even if many people, even if it's majority, won't use them that's fine. As long as there are people who find the new habitats useful, the cost reduction accomplished it's goal. What you're proposing further down your post merely takes away options from people forcing them to play a particular style, which is what bad games are doing.
Or to put it all differently. You don't like micromanagement to the point where you'd rather use more costly technologies because they're more convenient? Than you shouldn't be playing Aurora, which seems to have a motto: streamlining is for the weak!
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About the automines, habitats etc. . .
I think this isn't issue of costs, it's an issue of availability - by which I mean that automines and mass drivers are so damn convenient that having them available at all instantly makes other mining technologies obsolete and pointless. It doesn't really matter whether automines are 20 %, 100 % or even 300 % more expensive than habitats - they are simply so good that I am willing to accept the cost. They will always be the better choice.
It all comes down to what Zincat says:
Imagine you had to (1) use only manned mines and (2) transport everything back home in freighters. This requires huuuuuge logistic chains with shipyards, freighters, tugs, fuel refineries, military for defence etc. etc. These are complex systems prone to cause troubles. But the moment you can build automines and mass drivers, this enables you to skip logistics almost completely. No longer you have a complex system that needs to be maintained, it has been magically handwawed away. Mining becomes "fire and forget". So convenient.
Imagine the game instead worked like this:
- In the early game you can only build manned mined and you don't have mass drivers so you need to transport everything manually.
- Later, "asteroid mining modules" become available which eliminates some trouble with setting up colonies and allows at least some automation.
- Even later, you can research automines, which have asteroid mining modules as prerequisites and are very expensive in RP. That's because they make the previous options effectively obsolete.
In a separate research chain:
- At some point mid-game you can research early mass drivers. There are extremely expensive to build (or perhaps have certain requirements for the system body?) so they are ineffective to build at every moon and asteroid. Instead, you build one for example in the whole Jovian subsystem and then use freighters to shuttle minerals from nearby moons to the mass driver.
- Only in late game, mass drivers become cheap enough (or the requirements become loose enough) so that you can build them everywhere.
The overall effect:
- Early game civilizations have to rely on massive logistic chains based on freighters and manned outposts. Slowly as the technology progresses (and your empire grows), this becomes more hands-off and automated. Only in late game (with a large empire) you will have fully automated chains with mass drivers and automines.
Obviously, this is all very much IMHO. But I am convinced that automines especially, and mass drivers to a lesser extent, are simply so good that players will rarely have reason to use anything else. These two technologies together are making many other game mechanics useless, and in extension, making the game less interesting. Which is exacerbated by the fact that they are freely available from the beginning.
I think you're blowing it a little out of proportion.
Firstly, any shipping of minerals out of a system requires freighters... and I've never found it to be explicitly difficult to manage them (actually usually they just run on a command loop and pick up every few months)
Also its not a HUUUUUUUUGUGGGGEEEE logistical demand to do well.... anything in the game.
The idea that manned/ship mining is worthless is a joke.
If I'm going to build a forward base on an uninhabitable world, or even a world with a high-ish colony cost, its going to need an orbital habitat for recreation of ships, and manning DSTS, maintenance facilities, and if necessary, terraformers, and manned mining facilities.
Now, if its NOT something thats going to be a base (IE a planet that has less worth being a base than somethign else in the system) it gets automined, or if its an asteroid it gets space mined.
To point out though, the mineral strain of producing automines over regular mines is quite substantial. Terrestrial worlds that make great bases and colonies often have lots of minerals, and its 0 work on my part to put manned mines there as opposed to automatic ones.
Also ship based ones are half the cost of auto ones, and don't require a freighter to move them about. (Just need enough cargo space on the mining ship to carry a mass driver, or have it followed up by a real freighter to pick up the minerals)
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I always thought DSTS's didn't require any population to run? At least I don't remember seeing any workers assigned to DSTS's in the worker breakdown list.
Also, what about being able to tractor beam asteroids (and other small bodies?). Then you could try pulling some through a jump point into an empty system and set up some asteroid forts or whatnot.
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I always thought DSTS's didn't require any population to run? At least I don't remember seeing any workers assigned to DSTS's in the worker breakdown list.
Also, what about being able to tractor beam asteroids (and other small bodies?). Then you could try pulling some through a jump point into an empty system and set up some asteroid forts or whatnot.
Sorry,d erped that moment, no they don't require population.
But the point stills tands, that if a planet is going to be populated, might as well use manned facilities over automines.
Also theres no pulling of asteroids with tractor beams.
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Well, that was intended more as a suggestion; previously someone (Steve I think?) mentioned having random asteroids in an otherwise empty system would cause issues with suspension of disbelief, and this could be a possible solution/explanation for it.
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I think you're blowing it a little out of proportion.
I am aware of that, and I've also crossed into suggestion territory. But I still think I have a point (to an extant) from game design perspective. Let me rephrase:
In an empire management game, it is interesting to have large logistic chains. We all love building them, and managing them, they provide challenges and open up possibilities of trouble that you need to solve. So the design of the game rules should encourage building these chains. They're fun! But in Aurora, the readily available automines and mass drivers actually do the opposite – discourage you from complex logistics, and encourage you to choose the more boring solution. Especially when they are available by default while the other options aren't.
And yes, you can still have roleplaying motivations but those shouldn't really be taken as an design excuse.
(By no way I'm saying here that Aurora is poorly design. I adore this game. This is just an idea. )
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Steve, I've had a thought about the deep space station we talked about on this thread. Are shipyards also tied to colonies like populations are? If not is there any reason a shipyard can't orbit a deep space station?
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Well, the move toward colony-free maintenance seemed to entail decoupling maintenance activities from mineral stockpiles, so I would assume that Steve doesn't want to have to track potential mineral consumption at individual task groups. That would preclude any kind of deep space manufacturing, including shipbuilding, if my assumption is correct.
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Steve, I've had a thought about the deep space station we talked about on this thread. Are shipyards also tied to colonies like populations are? If not is there any reason a shipyard can't orbit a deep space station?
Shipyards are very much tied to colonies. As long as you can find any system body at all though, no matter how small, you can use shipyards and orbital habitats.
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Regarding the ablative vs deflective armor, I certainly do not suggest a completely deflective model. That would indeed be exploitable. But it is my opinion that the completely ablative model used now also has problems. Mainly, no matter how advanced the technologies become no weapon ever becomes completely obsolete.
Looking at the higher end armors, we have some pretty incredible and futuristic stuff there. I would expect that some armor named "Bonded superdense armor" would be capable of just shrugging off a tiny (damage 1) infrared laser, just to make an example. Or bouncing the smallest kind of railgun (damage 1 per shot also).
A possible proposal, considering we have 12 tiers of armor, could be: tier 1-4, 0 "deflection point". tier 4-8, 1 "deflection point". Tier 9-12, 2 "deflection points". This would be a small enough number not to create invincible ships, but would at least somewhat model the higher technology and encourage to build weapons a bit bigger.
...The original design was too imbalanced towards impregnable armor; the next iteration towards ablative armor. The "shock damage" change was Steve's effort to pull the balance back towards the center, and based on his post above he's happy with it, so it's unlikely to change :)
I don't doubt that Steve and others are happy with the way armor is currently. But, rather than drastically change the way all armor works, I'd like to see more than one type of armor as choices. That is, one type of "ablative" armor like we currently have, and also the ability to research a "deflective" armor similar to what Zincat suggested with certain deflection points at certain tech levels.
I'm of the opinion that, as long as game balance doesn't suffer, having more design options is usually a good thing. It makes ship design more interesting.
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I think we should just wait for a revamp of the armor system. Instead of armor just decreasing in weight as you get higher tech, I think they should have different properties to them and/or multiple types on the same tech level that have differences between eachother (ie; shock damage absorption, thermal/em absorption, etc). Maybe one type is lighter but more expensive, another would have a natural damage absorption, another would have a passive stealth to it (behaves like a cloaking devise a little bit) but doesn't absorb shock as well. These are just examples and something better could probably be worked out. You could also possibly incorporate the new "shell" armor (skeleton ships/stations) into this somehow. But then, this post might have been better going into the 7.20 discussion or the suggestion thread.
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Speaking of armour, does the NPR use missile armour now? I'm fighting an NPR with very slow missiles, but about 1/3 of my intercepts are not destroying the incoming missiles, even when they are hitting.
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Added spoiler tags to the above post, since if the question is answered in the affirmative, it's probably something that Steve intentionally didn't mention.
John
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Answer to the above spoiler Im very sure I've heard people ask that before recently, it's pretty likely that's the case but I haven't got any proof
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I don't know if this was intended as a spoiler, but I don't recall Steve mentioning that genetic modification techs got a facelift. I like the changes, but I think they make it possible to bioengineer a human-derived race that can withstand temperatures into the negative Kelvin range. Anyway, I can't find anything in the release notes about it. Was it mentioned in some thread other than Changes for 7.XX?
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I like the changes, but I think they make it possible to bioengineer a human-derived race that can withstand temperatures into the negative Kelvin range.
negative Kelvin range(http://www.greensmilies.com/smile/smiley_emoticons_xd.gif) "The future of humanity: Deep frosted ...at the other side of the multiverse." Star Trek scripters would be proud.
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My sleep deprived brain must have changed some units around last night. Turns out that the base temperature reduction genetic modifications are in degrees Celsius, not percent, so -90C looked to my befuddled eyes as if it was -90%. I still like the changes, though.
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Why are you
spoiling spoilering genetic changes anyway? Seeing the entire biological tech tree is as easy as clicking the All Projects radio button.
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Sure, it's there if you go looking for it, but spoilering the text keeps it that way. I was surprised last night when the base tech completed and I saw all the tech lines had changed values. I didn't want to spoil the pleasant surprise for anyone else.
A quick search of the Mechanics forum didn't turn up any mention of it, and the wiki still shows the old values.
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Sure, it's there if you go looking for it, but spoilering the text keeps it that way. I was surprised last night when the base tech completed and I saw all the tech lines had changed values. I didn't want to spoil the pleasant surprise for anyone else.
The rule of thumb I use for whether content should be spoilered is if it hands you the solution to what's intended to be a puzzle. Generally speaking, this involves new information about capabilities, actions, and tactics of aliens.
John
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The tech tree itself does contain a few surprises anyway, it's not all just bigger numbers.
Well it sort of is, but you know what I mean.