You might need to install this:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-US/download/details.aspx?id=48145

I've never used SA myself but my understanding is that Aurora grew out of it so it probably needs the same Visual Studio files that old Aurora (VB6) used to require and which don't come with newer Windows versions anymore.

I just checked in Edge and all three links in the first post worked. You may need to make sure you are using HTTP instead of HTTPS.

A question that has bothered me for a while: would it be worth the effort to arm gunboats with standard anti-mine missiles and send them through to clear minefields? I can see that it would be a fast way to clear mines, since a gunboat can carry 16 standard missiles, therefore 16 standard anti-mine missiles. A squadron of 6 gunboats would thus be able to fire 96 missiles. This would be a fast and cheap way to clear minefields, but I'm not sure it would be better than using missiles launched from warships.  The advantage would be to clear mines without risking your warships. Any thoughts or comments?

You have a lot of wrong numbers...a standard gunboat carries 4 standard missiles which could be anti-mine missiles sure...and 4 gunboats in the squadron could launch 16 missiles but you need a bunch of missiles to actually take out a pattern so while this would work you would need a bunch of squadrons...no reason to not do it if the enemy is not protecting the mine field.  But it is likely faster to just have the gunboats move through the minefield as that kills mines fast too.  The higher tech gunboats would have 6 in line racks and 6 gunboats per squadron they could launch 36...

The question is more what is there protecting the mines.  Gunboats can die in job lots to fire so this works against a defended field only if you can simul-transit in a bunch of GBs.  And then well once they punch through the minefield they aren't much use as they don't have any other weapons. except their onboard laser.

I agree about the size of some essentially computer components, but I think that much of it stems from assumptions absorbed (consciously or otherwise) from the initial source material that SVC used when creating the earliest editions of the game... 

Much of the tech is largely based on E.E. (Doc) Smith's "Lensman" universe where "computer" was a job description rather than a piece of technology and datasets were held on punched cards (after all most of that was originally written in the 1930's and 40's - pre-transistors or much of the minaturisation that flowed on from that). 

Certainly during the UTM era there was much argument about reducing the size of electronic components, but it was considered to be too radical a departure from what 3rdR was at the time, as the mission was to try and consolidate the rules of the tech from the five or so sources. While there were some changes in EW, and how it was calculated I don't think that it really addressed the size of components IIRC

As E.E. Smith was the first Sci Fi I ever read I was thrilled when I spotted that Starfire basically was based on it.  Though I had forgotten that Weber wasn't the first one to work on the game.  Yeah, reading Azimov's "Before the Golden Age" books was interesting, most of the stories were not really readable just because the premise was so "silly" given what we know now.  Yeah I get why it wasn't done but why a CIC for example even in galactic starfire is 4 or 5 HS is beyond my ability to understand...the staff and control systems require 1/4 of the space of corvette?  That is one awfully big holotank.  But you see it in ISW4 when the next gen whatevers show up suddenly because the Orions got involved they reduced dramatically in size.  We adopted that Mix has Xr built in as there is no reason the 2nd generation system would have it when it smaller and that is an awefully huge space hog.

Though I'm re-reading for the upteenth time "In Death Ground" and I must admit the fights just make no sense...BCR's even in command datagroups only have the same launcher numbers as 3 Archers...and the chance to hit at long range is so crap that saturating their point defence is never happening.  But I'm fairly sure they were supposed to have like +9 to hit and so on...or whatever the original 2nd edition rules for the Mix system were.  And the ISW4 ships in the scenarios are distorted anyway.  But my mind still boggles at the bug stupidity at alpha C...not leaving a chain of communication ships or advancing their SDs into the system anyway was just painfully moronic.   And the gunboat threat I just don't follow...or the stupid wave of cutters...those things have no point defence so AFMHAWK would obliterate them.   The GBs...are charging into massed Wa armed ships...once the range drops to the point they fire in sprint mode a command datagroup likely kills 60 GBs everytime they fire or more given they have Mix to negate the -3 to hit.  Even with regular mode against their PD they would reap holy havoc.  Yeah I suspect there was just a lot too many rules changes between the author's and my versions of the game.

Starslayer and I have run into the 100 HS nightmare in our campaign, basically our average TL is now 9 and so you can deploy a fairly solid defence around any WP given time: BS4-6, small craft CAP, mine fields, IDEW and so forth.   But 100 HS WP restrict you to BBs as your largest assault ship.  Now we have home rules and such which make construction take a more reasonable time so no one can just shovel through BBs till the enemy collapses, or at least you could do that once only and need a long time to rebuild your WP assault force.

To solve this we are allowing Ic based battle rider carriers but still...the @ works far better with Jc engines were it is arriving at a distance to the WP...this is basically only a solution to allow SDs to move through WPs that they could not fit through normally.  I'm still dubious even a CVB battle rider carrier is really going to be able to bring more than 1 SD or ML through on racks and not have it blown off said racks.

I was thinking to make a new engine available TL8.  The engine would reduce the effective transit size of the ship mounting it (ala Galactic starfire) so that a SD can make it through the 100 HS WP but the first generation engine would only allow a transit speed of (max)-2 (so 3 SDs per turn).  The next engine at TL10 would reduce the effective transit size so a ML could transit a 100 HS warp point and allow transit speed of (max)-1 (4 SD or 3 ML per turn).  The last type at TL12 would allow a MT to transit a 100 or 180 HS warp point and allow a transit speed of (max)-0 (5 SD, 4 ML or 3 MTs per turn).  During transit turns they could not employ engine tuners and would need 1 turn to enter or leave transit mode.

The next option is to make this an ability like advanced manoeuvring.  So it is a zero HS engine modification you can buy for a cost increase to your engines.  You take a turn to turn it on and off.

The final option would be to make the is device like a 2nd gen engine tuner that you need to install on the ship.  It would then be active or not.  It could not be run at the same time as an engine tunner.

What do people think?  I'm more or less just trying to get some brainstorming on the subject.  I'm a lot dubious the battleriders will work out for assaults though that will give some strategic boost to races that till now have been blocked from even deploying SDs due to 100 HS WPs.

Like some of the other people that responded, I just by-passed the whole issue by using rules that changed the limit from a hard size limit to a capacity per impulse limit.  I have always been partial to large ships, and so was innately against anything that made them less useful. 

Having said that, I get that you don't want to radically change the rules this deep into your campaign.  That makes sense.  I personally would lean towards a new tech system that modifies the size of the ship mounting it, rather than new engines, as that seems cleaner and easier to implement.  If you are using Starfire Assistant, a new tech system that modifies ship size for transit would likely be easier to implement as opposed to new engines, as well. 

Kurt