Some basic gameplay questions.

[sloanjh]

Is there a convenient way to figure out what needs to be changed when terraforming begins, or do you just have to go through each parameter?

Three things need to be done, IIRC:

1)  remove dangerous gasses
2)  adjust oxygen %
3)  adjust temperature (using greenhouse or anti-greenhouse).

Which one to do first depends on which one is the "long pole" (since colonization costs don't add up - the colonization cost is the worst of the three).  Practically speaking (assuming no dangerous gasses, and that the temperature cost is less than or equal to 2.0), this means working oxygen first, then temp.  In other words, a bad gas mixture (either wrong %O2 or dangerous gasses) will set a "floor" on the colonization cost, and it doesn't do any good to further adjust the temp once the floor has been reached until it's removed.

Something to watch - %O2 is easy to adjust on low-pressure worlds, since it takes less O2 to adjust the levels.

STEVE - Wasn't there discussion a while back to use the partial-pressure of O2 as the criterion, rather than %?  That would fix the above exploit.  You might also want to add an additional total pressure range, e.g. the human range would be centered at 3psi O2 and 15psi total.

John

[Erik L]

Is there a convenient way to figure out what needs to be changed when terraforming begins, or do you just have to go through each parameter?

Three things need to be done, IIRC:

1)  remove dangerous gasses
2)  adjust oxygen %
3)  adjust temperature (using greenhouse or anti-greenhouse).

Which one to do first depends on which one is the "long pole" (since colonization costs don't add up - the colonization cost is the worst of the three).  Practically speaking (assuming no dangerous gasses, and that the temperature cost is less than or equal to 2.0), this means working oxygen first, then temp.  In other words, a bad gas mixture (either wrong %O2 or dangerous gasses) will set a "floor" on the colonization cost, and it doesn't do any good to further adjust the temp once the floor has been reached until it's removed.

Something to watch - %O2 is easy to adjust on low-pressure worlds, since it takes less O2 to adjust the levels.

STEVE - Wasn't there discussion a while back to use the partial-pressure of O2 as the criterion, rather than %?  That would fix the above exploit.  You might also want to add an additional total pressure range, e.g. the human range would be centered at 3psi O2 and 15psi total.

John

Don't forget atmospheric pressure. If you got the right mix, you also need the right pressure (or within tolerances) to hit that 0.0 habitability.

[Brian Neumann]

Don't forget atmospheric pressure. If you got the right mix, you also need the right pressure (or within tolerances) to hit that 0.0 habitability.

Currently the amount of oxygen is a minimum and maximum amount based on the pressure and percentage range of the species from the homeworld.  That is it is the partial pressure of oxygen, not the % of oxygen present that is important.  There is also a maximum total pressure that a race can handle.  If the total pressure is greater than the racial tollerance, or the O2 amount is outside of the racial limits then the atmosphere is not breathable and the minimum colonization cost is a 2.

All this being true, a race from a low pressure world is going to have an easier time adjusting the O2 levels for planets with little or no atmosphere.  They will tend to have extreme problems however on denser atmosphere worlds as thier tollerances are going to be very small (20% or .2 is only a .08 range where 20% of .05 is .001)  While it may be a lot easier to get to .049 partial pressure from nothing, it is going to take a lot more to get down there from that .2 world.  A sort of side note on this is that races from heavier grav worlds are going to tend to have a wider range of acceptable planets to work with, but they will tend to need more terraforming than races from lower grav planets will (gravity and density of atmosphere generally being linked to some extent)

Brian

[sloanjh]

Don't forget atmospheric pressure. If you got the right mix, you also need the right pressure (or within tolerances) to hit that 0.0 habitability.

Currently the amount of oxygen is a minimum and maximum amount based on the pressure and percentage range of the species from the homeworld.  That is it is the partial pressure of oxygen, not the % of oxygen present that is important.  There is also a maximum total pressure that a race can handle.  If the total pressure is greater than the racial tollerance, or the O2 amount is outside of the racial limits then the atmosphere is not breathable and the minimum colonization cost is a 2.

All this being true, a race from a low pressure world is going to have an easier time adjusting the O2 levels for planets with little or no atmosphere.  They will tend to have extreme problems however on denser atmosphere worlds as thier tollerances are going to be very small (20% or .2 is only a .08 range where 20% of .05 is .001)  While it may be a lot easier to get to .049 partial pressure from nothing, it is going to take a lot more to get down there from that .2 world.  A sort of side note on this is that races from heavier grav worlds are going to tend to have a wider range of acceptable planets to work with, but they will tend to need more terraforming than races from lower grav planets will (gravity and density of atmosphere generally being linked to some extent)

Brian

Oops - Sounds like Steve already made the change (or I'm high on fumes).  Sorry 'bout that.

John

[jfelten]

Something along the lines of the history of Weber's Terran Federation, which was measured in hundred of years.

Well, it would take a heap of game play to reach several hundred years in Aurora.  IIRC Starfire admitted that the pop growth rate was totally unrealistic but they felt it necessary for game play.  But in general I think the Starfire campaign system pretty much broke down for huge empires.  Something we were trying to fix with 3DG before it was killed.  Aurora does seem much more "realistic" whatever that is for an interstellar 4X game.  

3) Ships need maintenance and overhauls, as well as a base where that can sit without accumulating time on their maintenance clocks. All of these require maintenance facilities, which in turn require population to man them. Although you can explore and project power 3-4 systems from the home world, your survey ships will soon be spending more time in transit then exploring. Establishing forward bases will allow you to expand more easily, using the base as a node. It can overhaul survey ships and can serve as a forward base for warships. If you are at war with an alien race, establishing a colony with maintenance facilities close to their territory will allow you to forward deploy ships without running up their clocks and create a defence in depth.

At first I really liked the maintenance system but after playing awhile, IMO it became more work than it was worth and slowed down gameplay too much for my taste.  A matter of opinion of course and I know you primarily write the software for your gaming.  Plus there was a bug or something I was doing wrong that became increasingly annoying where sometimes when I started an overhaul on a ship, but while being overhauled it would continue to deteriorate (I think for some reason the overhaul orders were not putting some ships at the HW where the maintenance facilities were supposed to stop ships from falling apart; I had plenty of maintenance capacity there and when I noticed this and manually moved them to the HW the deterioration stopped).  And it just seemed silly for ships to be spending multiple years being overhauled, sometimes taking longer to overhaul than building a whole new ship of that class.  Part of my dissatisfaction with the maintenance system was because I had used sample ship designs for my setup that I later learned were designed for a game with maintenance turned off.  Later ships I designed with more inherent maintenance space worked much better, but I was still spending a lot of time fiddling with it when it wasn't adding much game enjoyment for me.  So I started a new game with maintenance turned off.  I am glad that is an option although it is a bit of a shame to not use that part of the game since there is a lot there.  If there was a configuration option to tone down the rate at which ships fall apart, I would have gone for that instead.  

6) If you build spaceports on colonies, you can create trade routes that generate more wealth. Some planets have a rare trade goods bonus that will increase the wealth from trade routes. The Commonwealth in my current campaign is generating 25% of its income from trade.

I need to learn about trade.  Can you trade between your own colonies and HW or only with aliens?  I've not noticed anywhere in the game yet that mentioned any special rare trade goods on any planets.  

8) Ruins can be a good source of installations. Rather than bring them all home, use them as a basis of a new colony, bring in population and only remove what it is unnecessary.

I recently learned about that, although it takes many years of game time for a team to exploit those industry on ruins.  Can't complain about free though.  

10) A planet with a good amount of accessible sorium can be the fuel production centre of the Empire. Rather than bringing the Sorium back to the homeworld, put mines and fuel refineries (and an officer with good production/mining bonuses) on the planet.

That is a good point.  I've not really thought of that since I can't produce fuel in the 3.2 game I'm playing due to the fuel production bug.  I tried the work around but that failed so I've just been cheating on fuel so far and letting the Sorium pile up.  

I note in your answer you mentioned infrastructure. Worlds with colony cost zero don't need infrastructure so It's a good idea to build terraforming ships and select planets that can be rapidly terraformed. The best place to analyse this is on the Available Colony window (ctrl-A from the main menu or the World icon on the System Map).

I'm trying that now.  I do wish there was an option to just let the terraformers figure out what is the optimal thing to work on rather than having to micromanage that particular function.  Another personal preference thing.  

Thanks for your answers Steve.  They were all very informative.

[Steve Walmsley]

3) Ships need maintenance and overhauls, as well as a base where that can sit without accumulating time on their maintenance clocks. All of these require maintenance facilities, which in turn require population to man them. Although you can explore and project power 3-4 systems from the home world, your survey ships will soon be spending more time in transit then exploring. Establishing forward bases will allow you to expand more easily, using the base as a node. It can overhaul survey ships and can serve as a forward base for warships. If you are at war with an alien race, establishing a colony with maintenance facilities close to their territory will allow you to forward deploy ships without running up their clocks and create a defence in depth.

At first I really liked the maintenance system but after playing awhile, IMO it became more work than it was worth and slowed down gameplay too much for my taste.  A matter of opinion of course and I know you primarily write the software for your gaming.  Plus there was a bug or something I was doing wrong that became increasingly annoying where sometimes when I started an overhaul on a ship, but while being overhauled it would continue to deteriorate (I think for some reason the overhaul orders were not putting some ships at the HW where the maintenance facilities were supposed to stop ships from falling apart; I had plenty of maintenance capacity there and when I noticed this and manually moved them to the HW the deterioration stopped).  And it just seemed silly for ships to be spending multiple years being overhauled, sometimes taking longer to overhaul than building a whole new ship of that class.  Part of my dissatisfaction with the maintenance system was because I had used sample ship designs for my setup that I later learned were designed for a game with maintenance turned off.  Later ships I designed with more inherent maintenance space worked much better, but I was still spending a lot of time fiddling with it when it wasn't adding much game enjoyment for me.  So I started a new game with maintenance turned off.  I am glad that is an option although it is a bit of a shame to not use that part of the game since there is a lot there.  If there was a configuration option to tone down the rate at which ships fall apart, I would have gone for that instead.  

It sounds like there is some other problem here otherwise I would be getting a lot of bug reports about this. Are the maintenance facilities where the overhaul is taking place large enough to support the ship being overhauled? As to the time taken by overhauls, most real-world warships spend more of their time in overhaul than in Aurora. I think the last set of overhauls for the Nimitz class carriers were scheduled for 33 months each.

The maintenance system encourages you to play in a way that reflects real-world concerns. Freighters have virtually no maintenance problems and you can insta-overhaul them at Commercial Freight Facilities. Non-combatants require limited overhauls and will spend only about 10% of their time in overhaul. Warships require more overhauls if they are in constant use. However, if you leave them in orbit of maintenance facilities of the required size (effectively in port), their maintenance clocks will not advance and they will not suffer any failures. Even in constant use they would only spend 25% of their time in overhaul. To be honest the maintenance requirement sort of fades into the background during the game. I know its there and I have to be aware of it but it doesn't impinge on gameplay. For example, when a survey ships comes home after a 2-3 year mission, I give it orders to refuel, resupply and overhaul, Then I forget about it until I get the event telling me the overhaul is complete. When a freighter or colony ship is on a cycle, I just include a freighter maintenance check order in the cycle. If you include a reasonable amount of maintenance on a ship, perhaps 2-4% of the hull space, it will have enough maintenance to repair its own system failures during normal operations. I don't think I have ever had a ship fall apart under regular maintenance failures.

I need to learn about trade.  Can you trade between your own colonies and HW or only with aliens?

 
Both. You can trade between any two worlds that have spaceports as long as they are in different systems and all the jump points between them have jump gates.

I've not noticed anywhere in the game yet that mentioned any special rare trade goods on any planets.  

They are rare . If a planet has any it will mention it on the SUmmary tab of the pop window.

10) A planet with a good amount of accessible sorium can be the fuel production centre of the Empire. Rather than bringing the Sorium back to the homeworld, put mines and fuel refineries (and an officer with good production/mining bonuses) on the planet.

That is a good point.  I've not really thought of that since I can't produce fuel in the 3.2 game I'm playing due to the fuel production bug.  I tried the work around but that failed so I've just been cheating on fuel so far and letting the Sorium pile up.  

The fuel production bug doesn't stop fuel production entirely. It only will stop it occasionally if you have already turned off mines.

As a final point, I forgot another reason for creating colonies. The service sector is much larger in percentage terms for bigger populations. Smaller colonies have a larger manufacturing sector. If you had fifteen 20m pop colonies instead of one 300m pop colony, you would have more than twice the manpower available for manufacturing.

Steve

[Erik L]

3) Ships need maintenance and overhauls, as well as a base where that can sit without accumulating time on their maintenance clocks. All of these require maintenance facilities, which in turn require population to man them. Although you can explore and project power 3-4 systems from the home world, your survey ships will soon be spending more time in transit then exploring. Establishing forward bases will allow you to expand more easily, using the base as a node. It can overhaul survey ships and can serve as a forward base for warships. If you are at war with an alien race, establishing a colony with maintenance facilities close to their territory will allow you to forward deploy ships without running up their clocks and create a defence in depth.

At first I really liked the maintenance system but after playing awhile, IMO it became more work than it was worth and slowed down gameplay too much for my taste.  A matter of opinion of course and I know you primarily write the software for your gaming.  Plus there was a bug or something I was doing wrong that became increasingly annoying where sometimes when I started an overhaul on a ship, but while being overhauled it would continue to deteriorate (I think for some reason the overhaul orders were not putting some ships at the HW where the maintenance facilities were supposed to stop ships from falling apart; I had plenty of maintenance capacity there and when I noticed this and manually moved them to the HW the deterioration stopped).  And it just seemed silly for ships to be spending multiple years being overhauled, sometimes taking longer to overhaul than building a whole new ship of that class.  Part of my dissatisfaction with the maintenance system was because I had used sample ship designs for my setup that I later learned were designed for a game with maintenance turned off.  Later ships I designed with more inherent maintenance space worked much better, but I was still spending a lot of time fiddling with it when it wasn't adding much game enjoyment for me.  So I started a new game with maintenance turned off.  I am glad that is an option although it is a bit of a shame to not use that part of the game since there is a lot there.  If there was a configuration option to tone down the rate at which ships fall apart, I would have gone for that instead.  

It sounds like there is some other problem here otherwise I would be getting a lot of bug reports about this. Are the maintenance facilities where the overhaul is taking place large enough to support the ship being overhauled? As to the time taken by overhauls, most real-world warships spend more of their time in overhaul than in Aurora. I think the last set of overhauls for the Nimitz class carriers were scheduled for 33 months each.
Steve

I've encountered this one before... and I believe I reported it... 2.5 or 2.6 I think, around then.

[Erik L]

At first I really liked the maintenance system but after playing awhile, IMO it became more work than it was worth and slowed down gameplay too much for my taste.  A matter of opinion of course and I know you primarily write the software for your gaming.  Plus there was a bug or something I was doing wrong that became increasingly annoying where sometimes when I started an overhaul on a ship, but while being overhauled it would continue to deteriorate (I think for some reason the overhaul orders were not putting some ships at the HW where the maintenance facilities were supposed to stop ships from falling apart; I had plenty of maintenance capacity there and when I noticed this and manually moved them to the HW the deterioration stopped).  And it just seemed silly for ships to be spending multiple years being overhauled, sometimes taking longer to overhaul than building a whole new ship of that class.  Part of my dissatisfaction with the maintenance system was because I had used sample ship designs for my setup that I later learned were designed for a game with maintenance turned off.  Later ships I designed with more inherent maintenance space worked much better, but I was still spending a lot of time fiddling with it when it wasn't adding much game enjoyment for me.  So I started a new game with maintenance turned off.  I am glad that is an option although it is a bit of a shame to not use that part of the game since there is a lot there.  If there was a configuration option to tone down the rate at which ships fall apart, I would have gone for that instead.  

It sounds like there is some other problem here otherwise I would be getting a lot of bug reports about this. Are the maintenance facilities where the overhaul is taking place large enough to support the ship being overhauled? As to the time taken by overhauls, most real-world warships spend more of their time in overhaul than in Aurora. I think the last set of overhauls for the Nimitz class carriers were scheduled for 33 months each.
Steve

I've encountered this one before... and I believe I reported it... 2.5 or 2.6 I think, around then.

Referenced in this bug thread viewtopic.php?f=11&t=799 about the 6th post in from Thor.

[welchbloke]

I'd like to add another question to this thread....
How do you import Themes and commander name themes?  I've seen the options in the Game menu but I've never tried to use them.

[jfelten]

It sounds like there is some other problem here otherwise I would be getting a lot of bug reports about this. Are the maintenance facilities where the overhaul is taking place large enough to support the ship being overhauled? As to the time taken by overhauls, most real-world warships spend more of their time in overhaul than in Aurora. I think the last set of overhauls for the Nimitz class carriers were scheduled for 33 months each.
Steve

Yes, there was sufficient maintenance facilities.  The problem was
that the ship was going in to overhaul status but apparently was not
considered at the homeworld, just very very close to the homeworld, so
the clock kept advancing.  And of course sometimes I wouldn't notice
this until a year or more later meaning it had to then spend much more
time being overhauled once I moved it to the HW.  This happened
several times when I was trying to play with maintenance turned on.  I
wonder how many people are playing with maintenance turned off so they
don't encounter this problem?

I didn't have that much trouble with warships overhauls since they
spent a lot of time at the HW.  My biggest problem was with survey
ships that try to stay out awhile surveying.  It seemed their
expensive survey instruments loved to break down as soon as possible.
The design I had copied had enough maintenance supplies to repair a
sensor once, but a 2nd failure it couldn't.  So it also couldn't
damage control one even after it topped off its maintenance supplies.
So then it would end up spending seeming ages in a shipyard repairing
one sensor.

I'm pretty sure a modern warship spending that much time in port is
either to save money or a major refit.  Until recently I worked right
next to a USN Commander but unfortunately he is at sea now.  I'll have
to ask if there are any senior chiefs or such I can chat with about
how often and how long the average modern warship needs to be
overhauled.

[Hawkeye]

Yes, there was sufficient maintenance facilities.  The problem was
that the ship was going in to overhaul status but apparently was not
considered at the homeworld, just very very close to the homeworld, so
the clock kept advancing.  And of course sometimes I wouldn't notice
this until a year or more later meaning it had to then spend much more
time being overhauled once I moved it to the HW.  This happened
several times when I was trying to play with maintenance turned on.  I
wonder how many people are playing with maintenance turned off so they
don't encounter this problem?

I am allways playing with maintenance ON but have never encoutered this situation.
Of course, I pretty much allways give orders in that, well, order:

Refuel at colony
Resupply at colony
Begin overhaul

I am assuming here, that the Refuel/Resupply orders make sure, the ship is really at the planet when overhaul starts.

[jfelten]

Yes, there was sufficient maintenance facilities.  The problem was
that the ship was going in to overhaul status but apparently was not
considered at the homeworld, just very very close to the homeworld, so
the clock kept advancing.  And of course sometimes I wouldn't notice
this until a year or more later meaning it had to then spend much more
time being overhauled once I moved it to the HW.  This happened
several times when I was trying to play with maintenance turned on.  I
wonder how many people are playing with maintenance turned off so they
don't encounter this problem?

I am allways playing with maintenance ON but have never encoutered this situation.
Of course, I pretty much allways give orders in that, well, order:

Refuel at colony
Resupply at colony
Begin overhaul

I am assuming here, that the Refuel/Resupply orders make sure, the ship is really at the planet when overhaul starts.

I am pretty sure I was doing the same thing every time.  Usually it would work, but once in awhile it wouldn't.  Obviously the program should not allow a ship to go in to overhaul if it isn't at a legal location to do so.  The worst and most exasperating part is the way I would usually finally notice it is when the ship started to fall apart.  Since it had topped up on maintenance parts before going in to overhaul that meant it had already been sitting there a long time with the clock still running.  Once in overhaul there is no way I could find to restock maintenance so even once I "fixed" the problem so the clock would start going backwards instead of forwards, the ship would continue falling apart.  Since the clock had been running so long, the overhaul now took even longer than normal giving the ship even more time to fall apart.  So here comes the ship fresh from its overhaul a decrepit wreck that then needs to go in to a shipyard for a few more years of repair.  

If I had paid closer attention and monitored each ship during overhaul, I could have minimized the impact.  But I was trying to move the game along as it was my first test game.  Manually monitoring dozens of ships would have slowed things down considerably.

[sloanjh]

I'm pretty sure a modern warship spending that much time in port is
either to save money or a major refit.  Until recently I worked right
next to a USN Commander but unfortunately he is at sea now.  I'll have
to ask if there are any senior chiefs or such I can chat with about
how often and how long the average modern warship needs to be
overhauled.

For USN carriers, the peacetime cycle was 1/3 time deployed, 1/3 in refit, 1/3 working up.  In other words, a 12 carrier force had 4 carriers forward-deployed.  So the "clock unwind rate" was somewhere between 2:1 or 1:1 (depending on if you consider working-up time as being "in port" - I wouldn't).  Then there were Service Life Extension Program (SLEP) overhauls, which are the ones that would take several years to complete - I don't remember if these were every 15, 20 or 30 years (IIRC they were supposed to be about 1/2 way through the service life of the carrier, so I suspect it's 20 or 30).  There was actually a thread on this when Steve was moving to the clock-unwinding model for maintainence; I don't know if it's been lost in the depths of time, however.

I don't know how similar these numbers are for minor combatants, nor how the war has affected long-term deployment patterns.

[later] Ok - just did some googling.  Here's a writeup on the various carriers in the US fleet: http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/carriers/us_super.htm  - apparently SLEP (which seems to have morphed to COH) is at the ~30 year mark, is intended to add 15-20 years, and takes ~3 years.

The other one is an analysis on retiring the JFK. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL32731.pdf The important bit is on page CRS-11, where it says that with a 12 carrier force, the Navy "could surge 6 carriers within 30 days and another two carriers within 60 days - this seems to  uphold the idea that the other 4 carriers would be undergoing a major refit.

Disclaimer: I've never been in the Navy, so have no first-hand knowledge.

John

[jfelten]

Thanks for doing some research.  But don't assume just because a carrier isn't forward deployed that it is because it can't be, especially during peach time operations.  There are other considerations that Navy has to weigh such as that a ship at sea costs a lot more money, whether they have enough flight wings to go around, actual need for a carrier there, etc.  

Also, I think if you check wartime service histories you'll find that warships spent a lot more time at sea when doing so was strategically necessary, when not undergoing battle damage repairs of course.  

On a more theoretical level, spaceships are not ocean ships.  IMO being at sea vs in port is a much harsher environment compared to a spaceship which is always in space, unless you assume they'll be actually landing, which seems unlikely.  High technology should also play a part in making machines more reliable and capable of self maintenance and repair.  

Maybe there is some old salt here that will be able to share some personal experience / informed opinion.

[Larac]

That is correct.  There have been a couple debates about transporting planetary TIs, generally resulting in the opinion that the ability to do so would render terraforming ships far less useful, andthat would make the game less fun.  It seems to be about a 60-40 split against moving TIs though, so make you opinion heard.

Well make the TI buildable on another planet but once placed can not be moved again. a One shot sorta.

That means if you find a great planet that needs TF send a module but the ships could still be used to give a boost to planets that are easier to work on.

Make the Movable one a bit less % in ability, than one build on a planet from scratch, and more costly as it has to be build , broken down, shipped, and rebuilt.

Lee