Aurora 4x
VB6 Aurora => Aurora Chat => Topic started by: plasticpanzers on December 25, 2015, 11:09:23 PM
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Question: does Aurora 'cheat' when designing NPR ships? I as this question as I am 43 years into current game and have some
what i thought after a few dozen games worth of design were good survey ships of 17000 tons that could multi-task. I run
into this NPR in several systems and their ships (and it appears all NPR ships) move at 2-5 times whatever speed my engine
design is (magneto plasma right now). 1 single 9050 ton enemy NPR ship that appears to be able to jump also can move
at 4000kps, have huge armor and shrug off 12 hits by power 12 missiles, and launch over 100 power 13 missiles that my PD
cannot even seem to see (and i do have PD missile fire control and AMMs). it does not seem worthwhile to even arm my survey
ships as they consistantly get slaughtered by whatever NPR they run into nomatter how 'stealthy' I make them. This type of
combat seems consistant in every game I have run into hostile vessels. 3000 ton ships traveling at 12000 kps and ripping ships
to bits with energy weapons and these super ships of 9050 tons. Gets frustrating when you know your using the best tech you
can find (have 40 research shops working). My missiles consistantly hit and barely slow them down.
Also auto fire never seems to work. unless i play at 5 secs per turn to watch what happens the only weapon on my ships to fire
at all unless i control them are the CIWS. NO autofire marked ship ever fires a missile or beam weapon in anger. It appears you
have to manually assign every target even if there is only one or your ship will not defend itself.
It would be nice to have an autopause when your VERY first contact of a hostile or new race happens. if you running fat and happy
into what appears an empty system and don't run the game at superslow speeds of 5 second micro pulses you can find a TF blitzed
and gone if you hit even the 1 day button.
Also it appears to me enemy vessels get knowledge of my weapons ranges when i get nothing on them but sometimes size and usually
just speed. They stay just outside missile range like they know how far i can shoot which appears pretty darn cool for them at least.
just my grumbles....
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4000 km/s isn't fast at all for a magneto plasma tech warship. You might want to look at some player ship designs in that forum. Strength 12 missiles only penetrate 3 armor layers, so you may have just gotten unlucky.
I don't have any experience with using autofire, but the game should auto-pause whenever you detect a new or hostile ship.
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NPRs do "cheat" in a few major ways;
1) research doesn't cost them any money, this is because it was found they frequently went bankrupt which crippled their research making them useless in fights.
2) their ships don't use fuel. This is a fairly major issue but it's simplified this way to prevent bugs and more lag which would occur if AIs needed complex fuel logistics.
However AIs don't really exploit this, their engine and ship designs are fairly logical and similar to what players might use, because ships have limitless range they could just choose to use maximum multiplier engines on everything but they don't. You might find your ships are slow because you aren't using sufficient tonnage of engines, or very high multiplier. By ion I usually have ships doing 3000 km/s standard with 20-30 % engine and 1-1.25 multiplier. Fuel use is high but manageable.
It's interesting you mention them staying outside your missile range, I've never seen this happen, maybe that's their own missile range they're holding at?
They definitely don't have perfect intel on your ships as I have consistently slaughtered AI ships with inferior designs using various tactics.
Survey ships tend to get lost in first contact, it happens to everyone but the best way of avoiding it is making surveyors small therefore less detectable, and putting good passive sensors on them. Think size 5-10 thermals on a 4000 ton ship.
Point defence can be tricky, undersized missile sensors are basically useless, you need minimum size 6 detection range of 5 times the speed of the enemy missile. If you're travelling towards the enemy ship you'll need to add 5 times your own speed too. The game should pause once enemy missiles are detected. If you have a good thermal equipped ship in every task group you'll detect missiles before they're even in range of your actives. Automatic defence can be very tricky to set up and I can never remember exactly how to do it on the forum, I'll run through it later when I get in a PC.
Once again aurora should auto pause when you find a new race or hostile contact, unless you're running with minimum increments which causes updates to continue.
Post some of your ship designs, Maybe they could be improved somewhat?
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Never hit the Auto Fire button: apparently that's the NPR logic, and produces weird results (at best) when players try to use it. (IIRC what I've seen said in the forums, of course: since I found that nugget before I ever played, I've never touched it myself.)
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A 17kt ship moving at 4k will hardly ever be really stealthy.
And there does seem to be a problem with detecting the first missile strike in some engagements (happens to the NPRs as well). But it seems to be hard to fix since this has been happening for some time, but not in every engagement.
But AFAIK there are no cheats except for the research and fuel already mentioned here.
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NPRs don't have their actives on constantly, that's why you can surprise them with missiles.
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It has been odd matching ships with the AI. I cannot figure out how to get what apparently is on this 9000 ton hull
with any combination myself. And at 4000 kps it did appear slower than some of the 8000-12000kps ships i have
run across but they also appear vastly overpowered for their sizes consistantly. Once you take a jump drive off a
9000 ton hull there is not much left but to still move at 4000 kps and have 6 size 6 missile launchers as well as darn
good sensors make these still impressive opponents. That it had level 3 armor and i hit it with about 120 points of
damage from 10 missiles shows alot of resilence on that size hull as well. my missiles moved at over 21000 kps but
so did his tho just slightly slower. As Wellington said I would not match 3 of my ships to 1 of theirs and have lost
8 ships to 3 at times with no apparent major damage to any enemy vessel even with repeated his on small ships.
This is why I questioned the AI on 'cheating', not true cheating, but using a math formula that favors the AI well over
the human player to offset the human ability to play and adapt.
That they don't use fuel is impressive as it explains how their ships can rip around solar systems with such abandon while
I have to make sure I have a tanker in reserve. My current frigates run about 3900 or so kps while my heavy multitask
survey ships with alot of gear move only about 1200 with fuel stingy commercial drive and could never outrun salvos of
21000kps missiles anyhow.
Well TFNS Monitor just bit the bullet and I am not allowing the rest of the Survey TF Majestic (3 more of the class) go in
and help. I sent for my for Ajax class frigates and will try them out against this 9000 ton mighty mouse and see how it
goes (probably 4 more wrecks to add to the system i suppose).
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Well dumb me. I forgot to take off the survey order on the last 3 survey crusiers and they blissfully sailed toward mighty mouse
who promptly got in a missile duel with all three other ones. It appears mighty mouse has an infinite capacity quiver for its missiles
as i have counted 6 about every 30 seconds (good reload rate too) giving a total of about 200 missiles fired from a 9000 ton ship so far.
Also my first dead ship appeared to at least slow it from about 4000kps to 1800kps with 10 hits by 12 strength warhead hits and i just
got 10 more from the other ships (who are getting slapped dead one at a time anyhow) and now mighty mouse appears to have repaired
itself and is now up to about 3300kps despite the damage. I rather get that the remaining 12 missiles in flight will do no damage either.
Rather wierd.
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If you're wondering how did NPR build this ship, make some dropships and capture it.
You are very wrong about speed. You need to dedicate only 25% of mass on engines with MPD to get 4kkm/s, and that's with power modifier 1x. That leaves 75% of mass for weapons and armor, more than enough to carry a lot of launchers and armor.
EDIT: wait, you're attacking missile cruisers with SURVEY SHIPS? Why do they have weapons at all?
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My frigates (16000 tons) are 4000kps ships with (now) 4 launchers vs this little ship of 9000 tons with a missile capacity
of about 200 (shoots 6 per turn) at about 30 seconds per turn of 13 strength size 6 missiles, mine are strength 12 of size
9). Finally killed the little bugger with about 26 of my strength 12 missles. It slowed incrementally with hits and just
about continued firing to the end. Since i am only 43 years into the game and not likely to send anything fragile like a
dropship carrier (who i have yet to even waste time on researching troops with my major ships getting killed so easy) so
its going to be awhile before i see what this is made of. Evidently unlike the AI the player must balance economics with
military research even tho i have tech rushed for what i believe are good weapons with 40 labs toiling away. Lasers or
beam weapons appear useless so far as they are knife weapons and missiles (so far) sweep the field. I would expect to
get a bit further into the game before going to war after exploring just 3 systems so far (two with the hostile AI nation)
and have not even looked into the other two JPs in Sol yet!
With missiles that travel 20000 plus kps then a ship that goes 2000 or 4000 kps does not matter much. Its what you can
defend against and what you can dish out.
TFNS Monitor appears a loss with all hands but Monarch and Magesty have lifepods that Maverick is picking up now after
finally bumping off that little SOB. Now, if Maverick can survive picking up the survivors without getting killed as well it
goes back for a refit and to have 3 new sister ships built...
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You have got to be kidding me. 4 launchers? Pardon me, but your frigates are terrible. NPR-grade terrible! No wonder you get dismantled by NPRs.
Hear this:
1. Redesign your frigates, they'll be dead meat against everyone with few CIWS.
1. 1. You could post the design so we can see why there's only 4 launchers how it can be improved.
2. You need AMM ships, escorts and beam PD ships badly. If you don't build them, you will get killed over and over and over...
3. Beam weapons are not useless. They're very, very good if you know how to use them.
4. Speed does matter, faster ships are harder to hit. I had cruisers with 10.8kkm/s (with magneto-plasma drives, by the way) engage AMM battleships, and their AMMs had around 75-80% to-hit chance. That means 20% less damage.
4. 1. You also can catch up with enemy faster so you can tear them apart!
5. If you have troubles with economics (how?), colonize everything! And put wealth generating admins on your big colonies.
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Tuna is being a bit on the harsh side, but they aren't wrong.
Put your ship designs up for critique if you aren't sure how to proceed yourself, but you are absolutely wrong about speed, speed is generally a better defense than armor.
Beam weapons are pretty good, and they can also help with AM work if you build your fire controls and sensors right.
And yeah, you need more ship types, an AMM armed escort would probably have gone a long way towards saving you some damage there, and CIWS, mass railguns, or turreted energy weapons would have helped a lot as well.
Mass isn't everything if you aren't doing the right things with it.
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how fun. actually i hit them with every single missile. beam ships so far in my games die horribly despite extensive range research.
what level are you playing at? i am only 43 years into the game and only 3 years into exploration so i can built more advanced ships.
i don't use game master to cheat to start with advance tech but start at the beginning with beginning techs.
read my lips. 2000kps or 4000kps vs 21300kps missile. if i have a Barrett 50cal sniper rifle and your driving away in a Lamborghini
or a Subaru it will make little difference don't you think? You may get one more blink in if your in the Lamborghini but its a waste of
money.
If I go 3000-4000kps and some ship is zooming along at 8000kps i am still dead meat. More so with high speed missiles. More so if
the little buggers have 8 or so beam weapons in them and there are 30 at the same time. I just removed the UV lasers from my Ajax
class to load 2 more missile launchers in as beam weapons don't seem overly effective at 30million kilometers. They were turret mounted
and had the highest tech for speed I could get (320 tech level research for 40 labs) for both range and speed.
I am used to using computers to game with since the 8088 processor (I am 63) but never bothered to learn how the damn thing work so
posting ship designs is probably not going to happen but here is an example
Ajax Missile Frigate
3900 speed (magneto plasma drive), basic jump drive
4xlevel 9 launchers (took out the silly UV lasers)
2xlevel 1 AMM launchers
Nike-Ajax size 9 12point missiles 21,300kps 77MK range
Rimfire 1 point AMM 10000kps 2MK range
12 Gamma shields
Composite armor level 3
2 CIWS 16k tracking 4 hits per shot
ECM/ECCM level 1
Active/Thermal/EM sensors
Generally in a 1000 system game 43 years into deep space (its 2043 in my game) and 3 years into star exploration with 40 reserach centers
why am i fighting demon ships in 2 of the very first systems. In a 4x game there is some buildup prior to the bloodbath and I should not
require Enterprise G class starships or Star Destroyers launching from the International Space Station. Lighten up, I thought i was pretty
darn advanced for 3 years into interstellar exploration.
read more, i am not having economic problems, i am doing just fine. it appears the AI does not require economics (or a capacity limit for
ship magazines either...). It just irks me that so early in the game into the first systems surrounding Sol when I have done everything
right: built up an ecomonic base, a strong research base, good tech (for so early in such a huge game) to run into AI ships that cheat to
win.
Now, obviously, I could learn how to cheat too and start the game with the Space Master and just have all the techs and leaders up front but
I thought i would do it the hard way which is play the game as a type of historical game and have some fun. Being somewhat old but fairly
smart I know that I am doing the research just as fast as i can but i also know that using a marker to write a 24 on a 2 of clubs does not make
it a fair card game nor much fun.
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It seems that your survey ships are like the Enterprise which is fine from a RP perspective, but hardly optimal.
Personally my survey craft are about 4000t and fairly fast and decent armored with good passive senors. They still get killed sometimes, but often they detect trouble and can run from it. And even if they cant less men and ressources are lost and can be used for dedicated warships.
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The Ajax are my warships! lol! The Pathfinders were 1000 tons larger with geo and gravity sensors and only 1 launcher each
due to size limitations. The Pathfinders (the Maverick and such) were the ones getting slaughtered. Even in groups of 4.
I just deleted the game and will try again later in the week. Wife is complaining I spend too much time on the computer! lol!
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GreatTuna, no need to be confrontational mate :) We've all been new to Aurora.
plasticpanzers, no offense but I think you're using the wrong kind of setups. I saw that you're rather new to the forums, you probably are just not used to the way Aurora works. In Aurora, multi purpose ships are generally not very good combatants. Specialization does pay most of the time, especially if you're not very experienced yet and are trying out things.
Copy and paste one of your designs and we'll give you useful tips :) You can do copy from the class window- > Full summary view. And paste it here.
A few starting tips from me, even without seeing it.
- The first problem I saw was when you said "my 17000 ton multi purpose survey ship". 17000 tons is the size of a cruiser at least, it takes a lot of resources to build such a ship. I'm guessing here, but you probably wanted something that would not die out there on its own? So you added armor, some weapons, big sensors maybe, some anti missile and ended up with a huge thing that is obviously very slow, uses a ton of fuel... and is just not a proper military ship. A survey ship is realistically something small, fast and cheap. If it dies... well you just build another! or another five. And it will still cost less than your huge cruiser...
Keep in mind, by keeping the design small, it stays fast and uses little fuel. Plus you can build a lot of them and you're not tying up a valuable shipyard which can be used instead for a proper warship.
- As said, 4 launchers is way too few, especially for a ship of this size. You need a lot of firepower to destroy a ship, and even more if it has some anti missile defenses. Consider this, you have volleys of 4 missiles. If the enemy has 4 CIWS or 4 decent beam turrets, they're just going to be shot down.
- Beam weapons can be very good in a number of scenarios. First, they can be good multi purpose weapons if designed correctly, againt missiles, fighters and to mop up survivors of missile fights. They are also good on fighters. They serve very well on ships stationed to jump point defense. And as for proper warship weapons? If you have fast, armored warships with proper Anti-missile defenses or support, they can eat through the entire enemy missile volleys, chase them down, and blow them to bits. Do not underestimate them!
- Unless you completely outclass your enemy technologically (or are using carriers stationed far, far away from the fight), speed is important in military ships, speed is life. You cannot put a "dingy engine" on a ship and think it's a warship...
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Aww, scratch that. I think I'm not in a good mood for advicing. Sorry, I'll leave it to somebody else.
Just, you know, don't tell me speed is not important, because it is. And it is possible to get use of beams without resorting to 'cheating'.
Concentrate on one thing, be it surveys or combat, speed or armor, launchers or magazines. If you make one mess of ship from everything, it won't be useful.
Like this:
Slava class Cruiser 5 000 tons 170 Crew 946 BP TCS 100 TH 1080 EM 0
10800 km/s Armour 4-26 Shields 0-0 Sensors 6/6/0/0 Damage Control Rating 4 PPV 12
Maint Life 2.03 Years MSP 473 AFR 50% IFR 0.7% 1YR 152 5YR 2287 Max Repair 540 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months Spare Berths 3
Korolyov Turbines 1080 EP MilMPD (1) Power 1080 Fuel Use 52.94% Signature 1080 Exp 13%
Fuel Capacity 250 000 Litres Range 17.0 billion km (18 days at full power)
Browning Meson Cannon 90K\12R (4) Range 48 000km TS: 12500 km/s Power 3-3 RM 9 ROF 5 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S01.5 24-6000 (1) Max Range: 48 000 km TS: 6000 km/s 79 58 38 17 0 0 0 0 0 0
Shaw-Banks Stellarator Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (2) Total Power Output 12 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Ratters Ship Detector R100\Sz2 (1) GPS 2400 Range 14.4m km Resolution 100
Ratters Thermal Detector S6\Sz1 (1) Sensitivity 6 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 6m km
Ratters EM Detector S6\Sz1 (1) Sensitivity 6 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 6m km
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
No cheating, it's just optimized design tailored against more technologically developed (=faster) opponents.
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I will post some ship designs from the new game. my survey ships are large yes. and mulitpurpose so i did not require different
ships to do geo and grav surveys yet hopefully still survive. they use commercial high quality engines (magneto plasma) but are
only about 1400kps because they usually require long times surveying systems i found (at least to me). my frigates had 4 size
9 launchers and i thought were well armed. the missles worked quite well and hit continually. i built purpose built smaller ships
but found the game too boring with many dinky fleets going too and fro. I built 3/3 naval/commercial yards with up to 4 bays each
and built 4 ship survey/warship squadrons and sent them in 4 ship groups to survey or fight with a tanker/collier in reserve. my
warships had 3900kps speed which although not 4000k (tongue in cheek) I thought was fast enough looking thru posts. Remember
I have only been exploring other systems for 3 years. I built up a powerful economic base for my empire based basically on only
2 mining centers in Sol (that were fantastically good) with up to 100 mines on each and plenty of Civ mines. built up a steady supply
of labs from a starting 9 (my only cheat over the 5 in a basic game) to 40 in 35 years game time with high research rates and ship
building rates.
My complaint was that in a really basic starting game in Aurora does require a number of years of research to get decent techs and not
simply rush to jump drives and let in the bad guys right away. I was very careful to build powerful drives/sensors/missiles/beams on
powerful ships. I thought a 16,000 ton ship is dinky! If you need 100000 tons for a space station in this game (due to the recreation
center) then 16k ships are small to me. I imagine i will learn more as i go along but it appears to take about 12 hours of playing to
get to the point where you can start doing decent things in the game. Most is building an economy that won't collapse because you
forgot to watch your minerals.
I suppose its just me and old sci fi books but a decent crusier should be alot bigger than 16,000 tons. A corvette system protector
of about 9000 maybe but I will see more later on. Heck, a decent small carrier is about 28,000 tons by my estimates so far. Too much
WW2 history for me I suppose! ;D
Well, started the new game. Have 2 scientists only. 1 Bio and 1 Sensor specialist. As Bones would say...oh, joy.
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Just threw up a jump-scout (personally I use jump tenders to send in 3 survey ships which are not able to jump themself) which might be at a similar tech level:
Survey class Geosurvey Ship 3 300 tons 88 Crew 732.8 BP TCS 66 TH 160 EM 0
4848 km/s JR 1-50 Armour 3-19 Shields 0-0 Sensors 56/56/0/2 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
Maint Life 1.71 Years MSP 139 AFR 87% IFR 1.2% 1YR 57 5YR 859 Max Repair 120 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 18 months Spare Berths 1
J3300(1-50) Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 3300 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 1
160 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (2) Power 160 Fuel Use 45% Signature 80 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 270 000 Litres Range 32.7 billion km (78 days at full power)
Thermal Sensor TH4-56 (1) Sensitivity 56 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 56m km
EM Detection Sensor EM4-56 (1) Sensitivity 56 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 56m km
Geological Survey Sensors (2) 2 Survey Points Per Hour
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Without the jump drive you can get better speed, passives, fuel, armor and mission time. And losing one of those will be much cheaper than an all-purpose ship when being send into the unknown.
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Dang, too slow with my reply... ;)
Well, the sad truth is that all-purpose ships - especially with a jump drive - are fairly suboptimal.
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Of course your ship designs depend on how long you have been playing that particular game or if you use Space Master
to get ahead early. I started a new thread on my new game for input on how i do it and I am up to 2007 from 2000 start date.
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I will post some ship designs from the new game. my survey ships are large yes. and mulitpurpose so i did not require different
ships to do geo and grav surveys yet hopefully still survive. they use commercial high quality engines (magneto plasma) but are
only about 1400kps because they usually require long times surveying systems i found (at least to me).
What is the range on your survey ships?
The big problem with your survey ships being that large is the NPRs can see the ship from much farther away so its hard to be stealthy. I will add my voice into the chorus of saying survey ships should be small, fast, and cheap. The smaller they are the smaller their EM and Thermal signatures are going to be and therefore harder for NPRs to find. Fast allows them to be hard to hit, earlier you used the following example "read my lips. 2000kps or 4000kps vs 21300kps missile. if i have a Barrett 50cal sniper rifle and your driving away in a Lamborghini or a Subaru it will make little difference don't you think? You may get one more blink in if your in the Lamborghini but its a waste of money." and in real life that is absolutely true. In Aurora, especially with the speeds we are talking about, its simply not true. Keep in mind a ship going 4,000 kilometers per second will go twice as far in a second as a ship going 2,000 kilometers per second and that 2,000 kilometer difference can be enough to cause the missile to miss even though its going over 5 times faster. Going back to your example a Barrett 50 cal doesn't go 5 times faster than a Lamborghini, it goes closer to the order of hundreds or thousands of times faster. Faster ships will stay in a potentially hostile system for less time, have a better chance to escape if found, and the speed WILL up its survivability.
my frigates had 4 size9 launchers and i thought were well armed. the missles worked quite well and hit continually.
Your missiles are too large. Use sizes 4-6, not only will that give you another missile or two, BUT more importantly as far as sensors go size 6 or smaller is resolution 1 whereas higher than 6 is seen at higher resolutions, which means they will be seen at larger distances.
i built purpose built smaller ships but found the game too boring with many dinky fleets going too and fro. I built 3/3 naval/commercial yards with up to 4 bays each and built 4 ship survey/warship squadrons and sent them in 4 ship groups to survey or fight with a tanker/collier in reserve. my warships had 3900kps speed which although not 4000k (tongue in cheek) I thought was fast enough looking thru posts.
Please expand on this. I would like to hear more about every part of this, why smaller ships were too boring, what your squadrons actually looked like, etc.
Remember I have only been exploring other systems for 3 years.
This confuses me greatly. You are 43 years into your game but only exploring for 3? What were you doing for the first 40? Did you do a conventional start? Did you do a TN start and just researched for 40 years?
I built up a powerful economic base for my empire based basically on only 2 mining centers in Sol (that were fantastically good) with up to 100 mines on each and plenty of Civ mines. built up a steady supply of labs from a starting 9 (my only cheat over the 5 in a basic game) to 40 in 35 years game time with high research rates and ship building rates.
You have no other colonies? Just two mining colonies? And are 40 years into the game? I would recommend more, at lot more.
My complaint was that in a really basic starting game in Aurora does require a number of years of research to get decent techs and not simply rush to jump drives and let in the bad guys right away. I was very careful to build powerful drives/sensors/missiles/beams on powerful ships. I thought a 16,000 ton ship is dinky! If you need 100000 tons for a space station in this game (due to the recreation center) then 16k ships are small to me.
Wait, hold the phone. Did you use any of your starting research points on giving yourself SMed research? That is a pretty basic part of the game. Also recreation centers are a no go. Don't use them. They don't work right.
I imagine i will learn more as i go along but it appears to take about 12 hours of playing to get to the point where you can start doing decent things in the game. Most is building an economy that won't collapse because you forgot to watch your minerals.
I have been playing for several (real) years now and that seems glacially slow to me.
I suppose its just me and old sci fi books but a decent crusier should be alot bigger than 16,000 tons. A corvette system protector of about 9000 maybe but I will see more later on. Heck, a decent small carrier is about 28,000 tons by my estimates so far. Too much WW2 history for me I suppose! ;D
There are two factions on this forum when it comes to ship size, I lean toward the smaller size camp and my battlecruisers are 8,00-16,000 tons. To me a battleship is 15,000-20,000 tons. What you are calling a corvette is larger than most of my heavy cruisers and bigger than some battlecruisers. 28,000 tons is right in the range of my fleet carriers, my escort or pocket carriers are generally around 10,000-15,000 tons. For the faction of small ship sizes mine are on the large size to boot. The major plus about smaller ships is the cost and time to build is much lower, also the ships have smaller cross sections and are generally harder to find than large ships.
Now there is also a faction on the forum that goes the other way, sometimes all the way up to 100,000+ tons, so be aware that such a philosophy does exist here but most of the people who will talk to you on these things are part of the smaller size faction. (Also side note, faction may be the wrong word because that suggests a more split and dogmatic stance than you will actually find, but it is a differing of opinion)
Well, started the new game. Have 2 scientists only. 1 Bio and 1 Sensor specialist. As Bones would say...oh, joy.
Have fun with that, but if you want to up your chances of getting more soon, build more military academies. That will up the chance of getting officers of any and all kinds.
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I'm impressed actually that you splashed one of them with a survey ship. To be honest I do field light attack craft with a similar number of launchers, but they weigh 1000 tons and attack as swarms.
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I have another post showing my start on a basic game.
My first survey ships were small, just large enough for a jump/engine/fuel/sensor but not enough range so they began getting
bigger and when i researched more weapons i armed them. the last was 17000 tons with 35% reduction on engines and fitted
with 1 missile launcher (size 6 or 9 depending on game), 1 AMM launcher, 1-2 CIWS, about 15 missiles per weapon as they were
not true warships just meant to keep the bugs off the windshield i hoped.
commercial and very thrifty drives (usually around .5 litre per) but magneo pulse or ion before i ever tried to leave Sol. Game starts
in 2000 and I spend the first 20-30 years in economics/research. Build up enough mines to maintain mineral income with minimal
ships. Research weapons but usually don't start getting arms designed til the research on good effiencent engines are done and
decent missile speeds (and darn good lasers as much good as they have done so far...).
I am used to the usual 4x games where you rush forward to get to at least mid tech before you meet others too dangeous to let live (cough)
This game requires you to remember everything or loose (have forgot to check minerals and run out of something!).
My weapons are good ones but it appears the applications towars a system like Starfire/Weber/White are not correct for this game. Folks
seem to prefer small, what i consider gunboats or fighters with size issues. When I think of a cruiser in the above mentioned i think of
something a bit more substantial and aim for that. I want my ships to fight and live. I would hate to design and use a ship base around
a singe weapon (just another figher, just bigger). I look for fleet actions, not fighter duels.
Sorry on my issue on speed. It seems my real world expierence of it pales with interstellar jump drive and nuclear pulse engines (lol!) but
the lamborgini comparison is valid in my games so far where my speeds from 900kps to 4000kps does not appear (yet) to mean squat when
the bugs are moving 12000kps and shooting holes in my nice shiny new ships (I have issues with that)
I used size 6 missiles for quite a few games and just updated to 9s to see if they hit better. they appear to do very nicely if the reload rate
is 55 seconds or less for the 9 or 30/45 for the 6s. I like a bigger boom.
As I mentioned i played a number of games (some up to 12 hours a day). being a disabled ex-mailman give you time. I found trying to get all
the tiny groups or single ship recon of systems clear was driving me up the wall. I gleefully discovered the unit split to singles and vice versa.
Makes a nice RP for the White series sending a survey sqn in and having it split up to survey a system and worked real well. Since my survey
ships were meant to be out for 4 years wandering about a system with 100s of asteoids the big ships worked well without having to bring them
in for rest all the time. Just when i thought i was safe to turn 4 Pathfinder class survey crusiers loose (I now send in one until the coast is clear)
but even then sometimes all four can get eaten when they get in too far and i discover too late there are bugs in the system.
I had two mining colonies in that one game. Both Mercury and Pluto were stacked to the gills with 1 or .9 minearls of all types in the 100s of 1000s.
no need for more mines elsewere. Just more MD as there loads exceeded 5000 tons per year. It vas nize....
In other games I have to be more conventional and have more mines spread out on different places but that was one nice setup in that game..sigh.
I like big ships and i cannot lie.....dinky ships are sad wee things....
thanks for the advice on the academies. Will get some started. Working those two poor guys to death....
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Large ships are great, but specialisation always helps with efficiency.
You mention starfire, are you a SF veteran ?
I wonder if maybe long ago you've used Steve's starfire assistant which Aurora was based on. Its a small world. I've never gotten around to reading Steve's epic starfire campaigns, mostly because the slight changes from Aurora's mechanics confuse me greatly. Also the rigellian campaign is massive in scale which is daunting to commit to reading.
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I have another post showing my start on a basic game.
I saw, I replied there but I would like to talk with more generalities here. Both for you and future readers of this thread.
My first survey ships were small, just large enough for a jump/engine/fuel/sensor but not enough range so they began getting
bigger and when i researched more weapons i armed them. the last was 17000 tons with 35% reduction on engines and fitted
with 1 missile launcher (size 6 or 9 depending on game), 1 AMM launcher, 1-2 CIWS, about 15 missiles per weapon as they were
not true warships just meant to keep the bugs off the windshield i hoped.
I never arm my survey ships. Small lowers their chance to be seen, fast keeps them safer, both keep the cost down and allow for easy replacement if needed. Adding weapons like that will just make them much larger, which makes them more expensive, easier to see, and slows them down without much return on investment. 1 CWIS should be plenty if you want some basic survival of your survey ships. Those magazines take up a lot of space without much return because you only have one launcher of each kind. Your missile launchers take up a bit of space and same with the fire controls you now have to add but with only one missile per volley any anti-missile defense (which NPRs are almost assured to have) will negate your offensive power, and 1 AMM per volley is at best marginally effective as long as their volleys are only 1 missile, which they won't be. So you are using space to have two launchers, two fire controls, at least one active sensor (but more likely two), and a magazine that is holds at least 105-150 MSP of missiles which puts it at fairly large, probably around 10 HS, which is 500 tons. So conservatively you are spending at least 1,000 tons probably more on an offense that will be swept aside very easily and a defense that will almost assuredly be overwhelmed. So that takes you down to at most 1600 tons but your armor belt gets smaller by removing those which takes away more weight and your ship's speed has risen so you can put smaller (and/or less) engine(s) on it which will then allow you to reduce your range making your ship even smaller. Also with the removal of those systems your failure rates goes down which means you can remove some of the engineering bays you probably put in, and all of these reduce your crew requirement meaning less crew quarters.
commercial and very thrifty drives (usually around .5 litre per) but magneo pulse or ion before i ever tried to leave Sol. Game starts
in 2000 and I spend the first 20-30 years in economics/research. Build up enough mines to maintain mineral income with minimal
ships. Research weapons but usually don't start getting arms designed til the research on good effiencent engines are done and
decent missile speeds (and darn good lasers as much good as they have done so far...).
I almost never go that far up the fuel efficiency tree, let alone have it keep me from exploring.
I am used to the usual 4x games where you rush forward to get to at least mid tech before you meet others too dangeous to let live (cough)
This game requires you to remember everything or loose (have forgot to check minerals and run out of something!).
Aurora doesn't play like most 4x games. As for remembering, its very daunting at first but as you play the game it gets much easier to remember all of that.
My weapons are good ones but it appears the applications towars a system like Starfire/Weber/White are not correct for this game. Folks
seem to prefer small, what i consider gunboats or fighters with size issues. When I think of a cruiser in the above mentioned i think of
something a bit more substantial and aim for that. I want my ships to fight and live. I would hate to design and use a ship base around
a singe weapon (just another figher, just bigger). I look for fleet actions, not fighter duels.
In this game a fighter is anything below 500 tons, and FAC (fast attack craft formally called gunboats) have a left over size range of 501-1,000 tons. In this game single purpose ships are a lot easier to handle than non.
Sorry on my issue on speed. It seems my real world expierence of it pales with interstellar jump drive and nuclear pulse engines (lol!) but
the lamborgini comparison is valid in my games so far where my speeds from 900kps to 4000kps does not appear (yet) to mean squat when
the bugs are moving 12000kps and shooting holes in my nice shiny new ships (I have issues with that)
The thing to keep in mind is missile to-hit chances are inversely proportional to the speed of the ship its trying to hit, and it scales linearly. So a ship that is traveling 4,000kps has half the chance of being hit by a given missile as a ship going 2,000kps. Now, that chance may still be over 100% BUT it is half the chance, a ship going 20,000kps will have 10% of the chance the 2,000kps ship has. In Aurora speed will allow you to dictate range of engagement, allow you more options to do things vs enemies, limit time in hostile systems, and will vastly increase your chance of surviving against any missile. 12,000kps with large volleys of hard hitting missiles sounds like a very specific type of NPR and they are not representative of most of the ones you will find.
I used size 6 missiles for quite a few games and just updated to 9s to see if they hit better. they appear to do very nicely if the reload rate
is 55 seconds or less for the 9 or 30/45 for the 6s. I like a bigger boom.
Size 9 will have a bigger boom sure, but it takes up more space in your magazines and your launchers will be larger so overall you are shooting less missiles and unless your warhead is a large chunk of your total MSP it will be overall less damage, and on top of that the size 9s will be seen sooner giving your foe more time to intercept it and a size 9 missile is shot down after the same amount of damage as a size 1 (assuming you don't armor your missile). So while each one that hits will do more damage it is likely that much less will hit given less missiles in total to fire, smaller volley size, and higher chance of interception, which will lead to less damage total. Though a size 9 is more likely to cause shock damage and to punch through the armor belt so there is that to consider.
As I mentioned i played a number of games (some up to 12 hours a day). being a disabled ex-mailman give you time. I found trying to get all
the tiny groups or single ship recon of systems clear was driving me up the wall. I gleefully discovered the unit split to singles and vice versa.
Makes a nice RP for the White series sending a survey sqn in and having it split up to survey a system and worked real well. Since my survey
ships were meant to be out for 4 years wandering about a system with 100s of asteoids the big ships worked well without having to bring them
in for rest all the time. Just when i thought i was safe to turn 4 Pathfinder class survey crusiers loose (I now send in one until the coast is clear)
but even then sometimes all four can get eaten when they get in too far and i discover too late there are bugs in the system.
This is all personal preference and we will disagree here.
I had two mining colonies in that one game. Both Mercury and Pluto were stacked to the gills with 1 or .9 minearls of all types in the 100s of 1000s.
no need for more mines elsewere. Just more MD as there loads exceeded 5000 tons per year. It vas nize....
In other games I have to be more conventional and have more mines spread out on different places but that was one nice setup in that game..sigh.
To me that is a small amount of resources.
I like big ships and i cannot lie.....dinky ships are sad wee things....
Again personal preference and we will disagree on that.
thanks for the advice on the academies. Will get some started. Working those two poor guys to death....
No problem.
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Now, obviously, I could learn how to cheat too and start the game with the Space Master and just have all the techs and leaders up front but
I thought i would do it the hard way which is play the game as a type of historical game and have some fun. Being somewhat old but fairly
smart I know that I am doing the research just as fast as i can but i also know that using a marker to write a 24 on a 2 of clubs does not make
it a fair card game nor much fun.
Others have addressed some of your technical issues, but I wanted to correct a common misconception that seems to be one of the root causes of your sense of unfairness and/or frustration. The misconception is "Using SM mode is cheating". This is NOT the kase (although SM mode can be used to cheat, of course). SM mode is an intrinsic part of the game, and is needed in Aurora because Steve is only one guy, and it's a lot easier not to code up all the nooks and crannies of the interface/rules and instead give the human an interface to apply common sense and/or follow loosely-defined directions. One important part of this is during game setup - SM mode is intended to be used during setup to give people the power to choose to either set the game up using Steve's rules, or to define their own "house rules".
In particular, the "basic" game is NOT intended to be played from a conventional start, or even from a zero-tech start. If you go with a trans-Newtonian start, you will see that you are given a certain number of tech points to spend as you'd like, and a certain number of build points to spend on fast-OOB of ships. The game and the NPRs are balanced upon the assumption that you will use these. In addition, the starting NPR are given a similar level of tech/ships, and generated NPR are made tougher as game time goes on, so time spent "turtling" in your home system while building up your tech will lead to you meeting tougher NPR when you venture out of your system (either due to starting NPR exploring and researching or due to newly discovered NPR being tougher). This is not to say that turtling is an invalid strategy - just that it has its own drawbacks. If you go with a conventional start, then you can assume that you will be an underdog in comparison to any space-going NPR that you run into, i.e. you get the downsides of turtling without the benefits.
Another thing to keep in mind: if you've been reading Steve's fiction you'll see that his empires very often get their ships pounded in their initial NPR encounters, then regroup, adjust to the threat, and expand in other directions until they can build a task force that can challenge the NPR. In addition, the galaxy is a big place and there might be some "different" NPR out there that are intended to be ultra-tough (these are called spoilers, and we try not to talk about them outside of spoiler tags or the Spoilers forum so as not to spoil the fun for other new players). As I mentioned above, part of a good Aurora strategy is to assume that you won't be able to beat everything you run into in combat, at least not in a first encounter - this is especially important when playing from a conventional start. As someone else mentioned, the ultra-fast NPR you ran into might be one of those.
I hope this helps with your enjoyment of the game. Have fun!!!
John
PS - Had to use "kase" instead of "case" above due to 403 error....
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A bit late to the party, but have a wander over to this thread (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=7857.0) (shameless self-reference) for a few designs of ships more towards the larger end of the spectrum. There's quite the mixed reception there which I suppose does give a good case for use of the word "faction" to describe the big vs small ship groups. The largest design I posted is about a third of the way down page 4.
I would also recommend Vandermeer's Astral Republic (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=7606.0) game which features some pretty hefty ships too, and is of course a great read if you've got the time.
Hopefully this will give a more balanced view on possible ship design philosophies since the "small ship faction" has already been here :P
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Actually I do like large warships (still smaller than yours, my carriers go up to about 40-50k), but prefer small scouts for the reasons already stated here.
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thanks for the input! I have not used SM as I do not know how it works and have not yet read thru enough posts on where more
expansive instructions can be found on how to use it. So far when i try i just manage to crash my game. Will keep trying tho.
Turtles have lived millions of years by the way.... ;D
Went back and tinkered a bit and started a game with SM but find that having all the 'goodies' available upfront is kinda not historical
RP game wise as all that tech appearing before a single ship even explores Luna? Would make for a more 'fun' game I suppose having
alot of tech and industries up front but I would rather guide my own destiny thru research and production in my own manner with a game
run off the 'stock' start (just without TN/missile installations) but with a few extra labs. This way my path is the one I choose rather than
a random one chosen for me.
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I guess that's one of the main reasons we all love Aurora - all the freedom in the world to play it exactly the way we want.
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I always tinker with sm mode when setting up a new game, it doesn't just let you learn all tech or spawn super dreadnoughts, you have quite a bit of control over setting up your empire to suit the theme or setting you're playing under. For instance you might decide as I did to start with massive orbital habitats at Jupiter, Spacemaster lets me grab some higher tech for those, spawn them, then Delete the techs so the rest of my game was played with a more standard tech level. I needed to remove my old homeworld at earth and spawn an NPR there, then I scattered minerals around Jupiters uninhabitable Moons to support my growth. And finally I colonised another moon which I put all my factories on, the habitats were set up there to simulate my new orbital homeworld.
I also usually start at sub-Newtonian tech level, I give myself all the missing techs needed for an initial low tech fleet, magazine, sensors, laser, rail gun, power plant and troop transports and I'll design some max power multiplier conventional engines for the initial fleet. Then I remove the extra power research and trans Newtonian tech research so I need to learn that before any higher techs. Otherwise everything is the same as a standard conventional start. I then spawn a few ships using this soon outdated tech, I also force myself to not use nuclear thermal as soon as it's available, I'll actually wait untill the research is done, then force myself to use underpowered engines untill ion research is done. At which point I'll delete the just completed ion tech then finally allow myself unrestricted use of nuclear thermal. It's complex, but I love low tech fleets and relish the opportunity to keep them active as long as possible, but I never liked the massive speed jump between conventional and nuclear thermal, so doing this allows me an intermediary tech level before getting real engines.
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Now I know something is wrong. In the earlier version of Aurora I could see incoming missiles. In my new games I
cannot see nor stop them at all except via CIWS. Currently I am only in year 2038 and trying to avenge a kill of one
of my unarmed survey vessels in the very first system i go into with four well armed frigates. ships that worked well
in the earlier Aurora version. Another 'mighty mouse' enemy vessel, fairly small yet has 20 missile launchers with
strength 11 missiles that travel across my 30m km sensor belt unseen and repeatidly strike my vessel smells alot like
the problem i had last time. In earlier versions at least my PD missiles could engage but none of my sensors even with
ECCM/EM/Thermal sensors even see the missles until they hit. I refuse to play a cheat game with premade research
but i will not play with such cheating or an error in the system. I will reload the older version tho with less features at
least does not do this evey game. No missile can go over 30m km in 5 seconds and no NPR should have such high value
weapons so early. pity and another waste of a day with another 5000kps super armed corvette with magic missiles....
and I know from playing the earlier version its not me nor am i stupid.
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38 years is not early. Even with conventional starts I am exploring within 10 years. With a normal start I am exploring within my first year. Also, SM is not cheating. I know at first it feels that way but its not.
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One other thing, what are your sensor resolutions? Are you saying you have a resolution 1 sensor that has a range of 30m km?
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I am saying I played the same type of games earlier just like the how to on youtube with the earlier version. Now notmatter
what i do these tiny little NPR ships are tearing me to pieces and I can do virtually nothing to stop them. I have played this
game about 50 times so far evenly between the older gone version and the new version 7. In the earlier versions my PD sensors
and missiles, hell even my standard ASMs, could take on enemy missiles. I could see them coming in at the lowest 5 second
intervals. Now they skip over 30million KM in 5 seconds and savage my ships. Even a 25,000kps missile would only travel 125k
km in 5 seconds unless these are magic missiles with ultra ECM which is strange so early. I start the game absolutly STOCK in
2000 with STOCK research and go from there. I hate playing 'cheat mode' (SM) and getting all the toys early before I have even
launched a single vessel. I could I suppose with my 9 research labs rush jump and go exploring but without a economic base at
all but then sometimes the bad guys follow my trail home and invade my system. Not much fun. There is NO fun for me to start
with a bunch of tech i have not earned by research down different paths. This is not the same game as you see on the older how
to on Youtube anymore. What I did right in the first 25 games with an empire in 40 years of 11 systems dies in 40 years going
into the first now. My ships have active 39Mk sensors and AMM short range sensors out to 2mK and see nothing at all. Only CIWS
does anything. Even my beam weapons don't engage now. I am wiping the game from my computer and starting over. I am
going to give this another try but will not continue wasting nights doing this over and over and I refuse to cheat to play to win.
If the game is set up to play from the start you should be able to play that way just as well as starting with uber techs.
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First thing is first, I have said this before and so have others, SM mode is not cheating. It is a tool to help you set up the game because it is made by one person in his spare time. Can you use SM mode to cheat? Absolutely, but that is not the only way to use it. If you start with a normal start you are given a set number of points depending on how big your empire is to use for both research and to have ships be created with no other cost. These points are subtracted from when you use SM mode to instant research, or instant create ships. Its a part of the game.
Let me ask a question real quick. If there was a screen before you started giving you so many points to spend on research and so many points to create a starting fleet would you see that as cheating?
As for referencing the youtube videos, I have never seen them so I have no frame of reference. Also when you say "the earlier version" I don't know which you mean. In the last two years, which is how long I have been playing Aurora, the game has gone from version 5.40 (I think) to now 7.00 soon to be 7.10. A rough estimate (and Steve or others could give a better answer) is there are at least 12 "earlier versions" in that span. Each of them has had several changes, some of them have had huge changes. Strategies that worked in 5.40 don't work in 7.00 because there is that much difference between the two of them.
I really would like to help you because it sounds like you are getting very frustrated at the game and as someone who was there once and loves the game to death I don't like to see that. What I need to help you is specifics. If you have sensors with resolution 1 that see out to 30 million kilometers and aren't seeing the missiles that is one thing, if you have sensors with resolution 100 that see 30 million kilometers and aren't seeing the missiles that is something completely different. In your other thread you posted an early version of one of your geological survey ships and both MarcAFK and I were able to give you some solid suggestions on how to improve the ship. In fact there is a whole subforum on here that is dedicated to people posting their ship designs and then discussing the designs. If you give us specifics like that we can talk about how to do things better.
In your other thread you say "another screwy outcome with vastly overpowered vessels in 2038 (only 38 years into game). will go back to earlier version of Aurora where at least my ships could fight." With that information all I can say is I wouldn't use the phrase only 38 years into the game. What did your ships exactly look like? What do you know about the enemy ships? And more than that saying "I have a sensor with a 30 million kilometer range" tells me nothing. With first level sensors if I set resolution to 100 I can get pretty close to 30 million kilometers and they wouldn't see a missile until it was within 100 kilometers at best. First level sensors with resolution 1 can see about 2 million kilometers without having to make it that big, a missile would have to be traveling at about 400,000 kps to travel that distance in 5 seconds and that is very unlikely.
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thank you for your help but i have deleted all my past games to clear up space. i will attempt later to redownload the 7.0 patch version.
i have played the previous to 7.0 patch version whatever that was. I have watched a number of hours of how to play aurora 4x on youtube
and am surprise you don't know about it. You certainly cannot play whatsoever from just downloading and playing that way unless you have
tons of spare hours for trial and error. This is how i learned to play and was doing quite well until patch 7.0. Perhaps its a bug. I have no
idea. Having a bitch of a time getting it reloading now. Keeps crashing even tho i follow all the instructions. I hate wasting time on a game.
My earlier ships worked fine. My earlier sensors worked fine. My earlier missles worked fine. They don't now. Its that simple. I do appreciate
the concern but I know what did work and what now apparently does not for whatever reason.
SM is cheating unless you like to start without having to actually do the work of reseraching techs. How on earth could a civilization have all
that info yet not have a ship in space? That is just my point of view. Its like playing WW2 with it starting with 1945 techs. Not happening
for me. No fun. No suprise. No adventure.
I do appreciate the help but remember you and others here have been playing a long time and perhaps are well versed in computer knowledge.
Not all of us are that lucky. I do have an IQ of around 150 and have been gaming for 50 or more years. Those used to and comfortable with
systems they have used for a long time don't understand that those new to a system cannot easily get into it so quickly and get frustrated with
the comments and quizzes 'why don't you understand, its so simple'. It is not unless you have done it for awhile. This has always been my
beef with computer game makers (free or not). They are immersed in their systems and don't understand they are alien to many folks til they
are themselves immersed in them. Its a different way of thinking from board games, no matter how advanced.
There is an issue with the game and how it operates now. You and others in it for awhile may not see it but i have expierence it in the transistion
from my first 25 games played with fun and the later 25 which have been terribly frustrating. I will give it a go but I won't continue to use my time
(what i have left) playing something that either does not work or work right or itself cheats forcing you to cheat to play it properly. Don't take
offense, thats just my point of view.
Edit: I think Steve has done an amazing job and the game itself appears amazing. Don't get me wrong. I do appreciate that he has done this in
his own time but I play the game in my own time and its just as valuable to me as his is to him.
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7.0 could be a part of the problem, most x.0 versions still have some serious bugs. Due to this I usually wait for a x.1 release before starting a new game. There is alredy a fairly lengthy 7.0 bug thread and fixes for 7.1.
Till Steve releases 7.1 I would stick with 6.43 or take a break.
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Good lord dude this is getting silly, no one cares or needs to know about your gaming history or IQ, and none of us can help you unless you actually give details on your problem, like telling us your sensor resolutions for one.
You should also consider that if literally everyone responding to you about SM mode are saying it isn't cheating, and only you are saying it is cheating, then you might actually be wrong about it, there isn't anything wrong with that.
When you create a game you are given a number of RP to spend on tech and designs, you are also given a bunch of points to spend on ships made with those designs, both the points are based on your starting population, and nothing other than your own self control keeps you from going over that, this isn't cheating, the NPRs get similar advantages. You keep saying "How on earth could a civilization have all that info yet not have a ship in space" I point you towards the part where I said you get points to spend on ships, you can both have those techs and have ships in space very easily, it is in fact encouraged! You can also set the system to be surveyed and customize minerals on planets as well, or simply let your freshly built surveyors do the job once the game starts.
This is not cheating, it is a basic feature of the game and one you should use if you want to maintain parity with the NPR advancement, and to have a fighting chance of dealing with certain spoiler enemies if they are turned on.
Just... take a step back, take a deep breath, acknowledge that you might not know everything, and that with the new version something might actually be broken and if you found it the only way you can get help is to give real details, then use the people here as a resource and not simply climb into your shell at the first sign of disagreement.
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There was a bug posted recently which seemed to have civilian ships magically teleporting across a system to ram enemy ships, perhaps there's something similar ?
But if that's not the case I'll repeat my claim that posting ship designs helps resolve problems.
Detecting missiles isn't easy, resolution 1 sensors actually only detect 50 ton objects at their full range. A size 100 missile is 50 tons. Their minimum detection range is for size 6 or smaller missiles and I believe that's close to only a tenth the full range of the sensor. Generally you want a large missile detection sensor on a dedicated sensor vessel or missile defence ship.
Thermal sensors detect based on an objects engine output, fast large missiles show up easily on large thermals but tiny size 1s may not be detected unless your sensor is very powerful.
I'm sorry your frustrated but it seems you've either gotten a raw deal with a bug or you need to invest in much better resolution 1 sensors.
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A size 100 missile is 50 tons.
Actually, size 20 missile is 50 tons. Size 100 missile is 250.
Just saying.
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Uh.... Yeah I knew that :p
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Maybe it would be more helpful/beneficial if we could help out in real time as he is playing the game... possibly try and set up some kind of voice chat (maybe screen share too)?
Otherwise, maybe it's about time we made some updated video tutorials. I haven't checked youtube for tutorials in a while, but I'm guessing the ones out there are getting fairly dated now.
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Gee, sorry I upset you Pan. Since you complain about my complaining I suppose I could suggest you are one of the issues
of folks who post not to explain a viewpoint but to attack those who have one. I spoke about myself to explain I am not a
12 year old playing the game but an experienced long time gamer who is not particuarly stupid but you seem to disagree.
Since I did not find your post in any way helpful maybe you should step back and take a look at yourself.
My 'viewpoint' is that starting the game with all the 'toys' in the box and available is not as fun as learning tech as you go along
and going down different paths (fighter/missile/beams). To start with mageto-pulse drive with no ships in space is wierd unless
you start with ships already. That is a choice that some (it appears alot) of players make (its easier i suppose). I (me or also
known as myself) choose the longer path. That is also how the setup screen is set with doing the 'all the toys' being the option
and not the norm by the look of it (and it does mention SM being for 'experienced players'. I am an 'experienced player' from
other games and years of playing wargames (and am a mil sci-fi buff).
Also I enjoy trying out my own designs (my Nike-Ajax missiles were quite effective) but if I have trouble fitting 4 launchers with alot
of support gear for long voyages on a 12,000 ton hull going 4k kps and run across an enemy vessel with 20 launchers as large as mine
going 5k kps on a 9000 ton hull and taking hundreds of points of hits and only slowing down with no loss in combat value while it rips
4 of my ships to pieces in 5 minutes I have an issue. It may be my designs but I do look at others and mine are not far off for the
level of tech I am using.
starting a game in 2000 and by 2038 and having surveyed Sol and set up an industrial base for my empire to support ship building and
exploration by 2038 because I want my ships to have magneto pulse drives and for my missiles as well (I do get speed is good now).
What is the good of looking into other systems and disturbing the bees if I don't have the industrial base to fight with or even take ad-
vantage of what i find? Looking back at our current space programs I think in a 1000 star game 38 years to explore the solar system
and build an intrasystem economic base with one or two off planet colonies is not really "slow" or "turtlelike".
By extensive research before daring to go out there (no model A cars in LaMans) I generally choose missiles supported by at least level
2 CIWS with UV lasers in support (min 36,000 km range before sensor addons). Gamma shields, composite armor. My sensors are good
enough not for system wide attack but about 30-50m k for missiles and longer for active and 2-3m k for AMMs which I install as well.
My survey cruisers generally had 1 size 6-9 launcher and 1-2 AMM launchers, 2 CIWS, 1500kps commercial drives for long range (48 months)
They traveled in groups of 4 supported by 4 frigates with 4 6-9 size launchers/2 AMM launchers/4000kps speed/2 CIWS and appropriate
armor and shields. They are SLOW but designed not for combat but for long term survey work. Once one checks for the 'all clear' for any
hostiles (not always sucessful in seeing them til its too late) then it calls in the other 3 to survey the system. Escort frigates with a tanker
usually sit on the other side of the jump point.
It was one of my survey cruiser squadrons (the M squadron) that ran into 'mighty mouse' that appeared to have eternal load magazines
and uber missles. In 25 earlier games even my ASMs could and did engage and destroy enemy ASMs. In the current patch 7 I don't even
see enemy missiles til they strike. I am using the very same designs in my post patch 7 games as from the earlier pre-patch 7 games.
I don't see the missiles at all til they strike, again. same design for sensors, same design for defences. You can, I hope, see my frustration.
I have tried variations of sensors in the last 3 tries, no go. Still don't see their missiles (4 launchers on enemy ship last game, 20! in this
last game on a 9000 ton hull (can't be box launchers as I am hit over and over). Only my CIWS defends. My 12,000 speed dual 12cm
UV laser turrets with 4x speed and darn good sensors (I did mention I researched well before leaving home?) did nothing in post patch 7
games but did fire in pre-patch 7 games.
I appeared to be extremely fortunate the my 4 survey crusiers kept pounding out their Nike-Ajax missiles and finally beat 'mighty mouse'
to death after 3 of my 4 survey crusiers died. Until it died it appeared on a 9050 ton hull to take over 240 damage points and only slow
down and never lost a weapon. It got down from 4000 kps to about 1300 from earlier damage and seemed to repair itself and was back
up to 3300 kps after destroying the 1st survey cruiser before the other 3 arrived as a group to help and finally killed it with mass hits.
I don't want to borrow other designs but I do enjoy looking them over (like Jane's Fighting Ships). I go my own path with designs tho based
upon research and what can fit into the hull after engines and jump drives. I enjoy the game greatly. I am darned good at ecomonics and
research. I was not bad at combat pre-patch 7. I feel like a blind sloth currently. You can understand that frustration.
The 'how to play Aurora 4x' videos were extensive. About 20min to about 40min and started just like i start my games, beginning at the
beginning so to speak. My designs and work were based upon watching the vids and they did work pre patch 7. They don't work the same
now and that is my issue. If it do what works and the game changes and what worked no longer works its not me. You can understand
that frustration (again). I don't think the enemy missiles of strength 11-13 are size one missiles. I did see enemy missiles in earlier pre7
games that i don't see now. Again, same sensors and i overlap the regular active/missile/PD missile sensors and still see nothing til i get
whacked.
Again Steve and it appears others have put tons of work into a wonderful project. I enjoy it. I would enjoy it more if things that worked
earlier worked the same. It just seems that here I am holding a screwdriver and suddenly somebody took the head off the screw. When,
either I can find out what I appear to be doing wrong (that was right earlier) or what the system is doing wrong (if anything) then I will
enjoy the game even more. But i will still play it my way which is learn, search, fight, expand.
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plastic, in a "regular" game of aurora, played as it was designed to be played (you can leave all of the options to their defaults on the game creation screen) you will start out as a trans-newtonian empire with some points in the bank to spend on both research AND creation of some starting ships (you will still have to design the ships before you spent your points on them.) To spend your starting points, you need to turn SM Mode on.
In the research screen you will see how many points you have left to spend displayed towards the middle-right of the window (you will need to have SM Mode turned on before you will see the display.) You can spend them by selecting a tech and using the "instant" button. You will also need to design your gear just like normal and it will cost you points to research your designs, so don't spend all your points on techs without remembering to design some equipment.
To create your starting fleet, use the Fast OB Creation option located under "Spacemaster" (same dropdown menu that you use to turn SM Mode on.) You'll see that you have two separate pools of points to spend. One pool is for starting ships, and the other is for starting PDCs. Once you've designed your ships, you can create them using this menu. The bigger and more complex your ships/PDCs, the more points they will cost you. It's also important to remember your limitations regarding maintenance and shipyard sizes when creating your initial designs. Technically nothing is stopping you from creating a behemoth of a ship, but if you don't start out with enough maint. facilities or a large enough shipyard, you might run into some issues fairly quickly.
Again, this is with all of the options left at their defaults. The game was designed with this in mind. It's the default way to play.
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You can think of your initial points as a way to decide what sort of civilization you would like to play as. You can spend them on literally anything you like. This means that the game can start off on a different foot every time you play. I think you'll also find that, at the default settings, you actually don't get a whole lot of tech or ships. Enough for some nuclear pulse engines and maybe a few other things, and a cargo/colony ship or two plus a surveyor. Give or take. It's really not much.
Granted, you *can* decide to just give yourself ALL of the techs, because there's nothing stopping you from spending more points than you have ... but if you want to play the way the game was intended to be played, you'll stick to using only your starting points and no more.
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thank you. I have done that. i did not enjoy it as much as playing cold start. going back to a cold start and trying
to get to the level you can be at with the SM start is a totally different game. I like to start prejump and early space
exploration. my enjoyment in my first game playing going into my first unexplored system was wonderful. It simply
is alot more fun to be 'stone age' going to 'star age' rather than starting on the run.
its one of the long term issues i had with Paradox's Heart of Iron series. The game designers there were happy to have
Tiger I tanks available in 1939 to overrun Poland ('It could happen!' was one of the arguments they used). I prefer to
start a game like that at the beginning and make my own way. thats just my choice and i know there are others.
When i say 'cheat' there are connotations. One is the computer program set up to 'cheat' mathmatically to overcome
program limitations against a human opponent. One is game setup where you can (in SM) set up to any level of toys in
the box to use. The last is to go back (as has been mentioned) and correct your errors (such as forgetting to put missiles
on some ships) buy using SM to correct that. The last is the cheat that covers up for mistakes and is like using the save
on some games over and over to get the outcome you want. Generally if i screw up its my fault and i try to fix it down
the road in the game (adapt) of if its too serious just start over.
regular and SM are simply choices. i choose regular because to me that is the challenge to overcome. thats just my choice
to enjoy the game that way. neither of them is right or wrong. the issues i am having are changes pre and post 7 patch
that appears to effect missile combat with NPRs. I have had about 2 dozen pre and post 7 games to see this issue and its
not just a one-off viewpoint. I will either discover what i am doing wrong or what has changed to make what i did that was
right now wrong.
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I have a long post typed out but keep getting 403 and I need to be off for work. I will try to figure it out in the morning.
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Uhh, plasticpanzers could you clarify whether you are asking for help or just need a place to rant?
People offered you a hand, but you ignore them and just keep rambling.
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Plastic,
There have been no changes to missile detection and no significant changes to the NPR design code (except carriers) between v6.43 and v7.10. If there was a problem with missiles not being detected I would be getting a LOT of bug reports to that effect. I haven't seen any. NPRs and even spoilers can be very different from game to game, especially if you meet them deep into the game, so you may be seeing aliens at the upper end of the random range.
A lot of people are trying to help and you seem to resent that help on the basis that we must think you are not very smart if you need help. That simply isn't the case. This is a hard game to learn and play and everyone needs help. This is probably the most polite and helpful forum on the internet so please don't take offers of help or advice as an attack.
As many people have stated, post your ship designs. You may find that your issues are due to some easily-overlooked problem that experienced players will spot immediately.
SM is short for Spacemaster, which is similar to a dungeon master in a role-playing game. As Aurora is primarily a solo game you will need to be the Spacemaster to setup the game and become the player to play it. The game is intended to played with a Trans-Newtonian start, with some basic tech and a few starting ships. You have a set number of points for tech and a set number of points for starting ships, depending on your population, You will need to use SM mode to spend them before the game begins. All the NPRs are setup on this basis.
A conventional start is effectively 'Advanced Mode' for Aurora as you are giving yourself a significant disadvantage vs. the NPRs. If you run into an alien race after 38 years (which is a long time into the game), there is a good chance it will be a fairly advanced race.
NPRs use the same rules for ship design and combat as you do. The only exceptions is that NPRs do not need fuel or maintenance, although their ships are designed as if they do. They have the same limitations on missile capacity (and have to reload) and the same armour as you do. Something else to consider is which options you are using. If you have Invaders on, they will have very advanced ships from game start. Also, most players (myself included) simply stay out of the way of advanced aliens until we have sufficient technology or numbers to overcome them. Sometimes, the bad guys are just too powerful and you have to retreat.
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I have a long post typed out but keep getting 403 and I need to be off for work. I will try to figure it out in the morning.
I had a similar problem. It was the word 'then' that was causing the 403. Once I removed it, I could post.
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[...]The major plus about smaller ships is the cost and time to build is much lower, also the ships have smaller cross sections and are generally harder to find than large ships.
Now there is also a faction on the forum that goes the other way, sometimes all the way up to 100,000+ tons, so be aware that such a philosophy does exist here but most of the people who will talk to you on these things are part of the smaller size faction. (Also side note, faction may be the wrong word because that suggests a more split and dogmatic stance than you will actually find, but it is a differing of opinion)
You hear that Athom and AL? We have become 3, so we are officially a faction now! (http://www.greensmilies.com/smile/smiley_emoticons_party.gif) ;)
One correction though, because it is such a hard standing prejudice: Large ships are not slower to produce, but against intuition even faster. It has something to do with the "largest component cost" vs. "total ship cost" ratio, which tends to go down as size increases, because component size is capped, and ship size is not.
Of course, getting the shipyard up to size for some monstrosity is its own time investment, but once it is done, you actually end up producing and refitting navy faster than anyone with smaller doctrine.
If the AI knew how to efficiently counter large ships, they would be obsolete in a second (thanks to shock damage), but since they don't, it is a nice alternative tactic for those who want to play a relaxed and fluent game here and there. Also it is pretty much obligatory once you try to emulate any sci-fi franchise, because basically every one sports stupendously large ships, even relatively realistic Star Trek.
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Ostia, I needed to rant, thank you for being the rantee....
Exactly how clinical to you post by the way? Your response was quite helpful (cough)
There appeared to be a small bug in the system for patch 7 that I am posting here rather than the bug forum that appeared to amplify
an error i made.
When i designed a new system (like R1 sensors or anything for that matter) it did not always show up on the design screen later. When
i hit the own tech x button, then hit it again, all the rest of the new techs showed up. Sometimes in later games when i got onto the design
screen no engines showed at all until i did the click on the own tech button and again.
In pre patch 7 games when i designed a system they showed up and i installed them. That happened for my first 25 test games (i don't play
right away i test new games heavily). In them I had R1 sensors and the missiles worked fine. In post patch 7 I missed it in the early test
game and kept repeating the error of not installing them which led to the missile problem. My fault for not noticeing but there was a bug
I stumbled over and kept repeating the error myself. Should be fixed now as i see the problem and will keep updating the design page to
make sure all systems are current on it.
Thanks to those whose comments are helpful. For the others, may the bugs eat your fleets (lol!)
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Ok, I think I know what's up with the missing components. So as you know, after designing new components you need to spend some research on them to actually be able to use them. However, if your ship design screen is still open when the research finishes, your new system wont show up because the ship design window doesn't automatically get refreshed. Whenever you use some of the functions in the ship design window such as obsolete component, your tech listing will be refreshed (as you discovered).
TLDR; either close and re-open the ship design window or click the "Refresh Tech" button and you should be able to see your shiny new tech.
@Vandermeer: in honour of this occasion, I think I might go design a special celebratory mega-ship which can launch "cakes" (missiles) across solar systems and packs plenty of "confetti" (gauss/CIWS) to help all my friendly NPR's enjoy the festivities ;D
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Even stuff that I had researched in the past (inc all engines) did not show up. When I finally noticed and started "clicking" buttons
and there everything was that was not before. I now refresh the page always before designing. thanks!
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I've had something like that with my components, I couldn't track down a specific cause so I forgot to post it.