v2.0.0 Changes List (also known as v1.14.0)

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Highlighted Civilian Mining Colonies

Any civilian mining colonies from which you are purchasing minerals are highlighted in light blue. This won't apply if the colony has a population greater than zero, as green text will be used instead.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Hull Numbers

v2.0 adds hull numbers for each ship. These are appended to the hull designation for each ship for display and reporting purposes. For example, the sixteenth destroyer built by a race will be designated as DD-16.

This designation is not affected by class. If the last destroyer of the Tribal class is DD-25, the first ship of the subsequent class with the same hull type will be DD-26.

An option on the Miscellaneous sub-tab of the Ship Overview tab on the Naval Organization window allows you to specify a hull number for a ship, as long as that hull number is not already in use. If you specify a number higher than any existing hull number for that hull type, new ships with the same hull type will increment hull numbers from that point onwards.

An option on the 'Ships in Class' tab of the Ship Class window allows you to reset the hull numbers of all ships with the same hull type. This is done in order of original creation.

There is a display flag on the Tactical Map display options to disable the display of hull numbers for a given race. The difference in display is simply DDG-51 Arleigh Burke vs DDG Arleigh Burke. This display flag applies to all uses of the hull number throughout the game - not just on the tactical map.

There is a display flag on the Miscellaneous tab of the Ship Class window that allows you to toggle hull number display for a specific class. For example, you may not want hull numbers for fighters. The hull numbers are still created for this class, but are not displayed if the toggle is off.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Academy Training Rates

For v2.0, Academies will produce ten officers per year instead of five. This is to address the increased number of naval and ground force roles. The ratio of different officer types will change to maintain a similar number of administrators and scientists, so the extra will be naval and ground force officers.

• Naval 60% to 64%
• Ground 25% to 28%
• Administrator 8% to 4%
• Scientists 7% to 4%

Administrator, ground force and scientist commandants will also change their weighting. They have a percentage chance to generate an officer of their own type before the normal process is followed.

• Ground 40% to 50%
• Administrator 16% to 8%
• Scientists 14% to 8%
• Naval remains at 80%

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Cargo Transfers

v2.0 allows the transfer of installations and minerals from one cargo ship to another (or to a station). Three new orders have been added (so far):

• Transfer Installation
• Transfer All Installations
• Transfer All Minerals

In principle, the task is similar to unloading to a population. To avoid complexities for many-to-many transfers, each transferring ship uses its own cargo handling capabilities. If the receiving fleet has at least one cargo shuttle bay, the transferring ships are treated as having one extra shuttle bay each.

The primary goal of the new orders is allow deep-space transshipment points, which creates the possibility of short-range freighters operating within a small area and delivering to a cargo station, from where longer-range freighters can distribute items to the wider empire. I will expand the transfer orders over time.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

No Officers Option

For v2.0, a 'No Officers' option has been added to the Ship Class window. A class with this flag will be ignored for the purposes of auto-assignment. Manual assignment will still be possible.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

On-Demand Promotions

Currently, Aurora uses an commander promotion system based on a ratio system. Naval commanders are promoted to maintain a 1:2 ratio between the number of commanders in a given rank and the number of commanders in the rank below it. Ground force commanders use a 1:3 ratio. For v2.0, this is changing to an on-demand promotion system that will operate during the automated assignment phase, rather than in a separate promotion phase.

Currently, automated assignment attempts to find a commander for a suitable role by searching through officers of the designated rank who have the primary bonus associated with the role and do not have a current assignment. For v2.0, an unsuccessful search will trigger a new search for commanders who are one rank lower and have the primary bonus. They must also have been in the lower rank for at least a year and do not have the 'do not promote' flag. If more than one candidate is found, the one with the highest primary bonus will be selected. If multiple commanders have the same bonus, the one with the highest promotion score will be selected. The selected commander is then promoted and assigned to the role. This applies to ship, ground and admin commands.

If the optional political bonuses are in effect, the political bonus will be added to the primary bonus when determining which commander to promote. The chance of the higher political bonuses on commander generation has been reduced.

There will no longer be promotions unless there are roles available to fill. This should result in a command structure that is reflective of the Empire's chosen naval and ground force doctrine.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Commander Bonuses

Several commander bonuses have been tweaked to aid the new on-demand promotion system.

• The chance of political bonuses above 10% has been significantly reduced
• The chance of having a crew training bonus has been increased from 60% to 80% with all of the increase in the 5% and 10% bonus bands.
• The chance of having a ground combat defence or ground combat offence bonus has been increased from 40% to 50% with all of the increase in the 5% and 10% bonus bands.
• The chance of naval officers having a production, mining or terraforming bonus has been increased from 15% to 20% with all of the increase in the 5% and 10% bonus bands.
• The chance of having a tactical or engineering bonus has been increased from 10% to 20% with all bonus bands increased equally
• The chance of naval officers having a logistics bonus has been increased from 10% to 50% with all bonus bands increased equally

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Starting Commanders

Even though v2.0 introduces the concept of promotion on-demand, an Empire will still need an initial officer corps. This will be created used the current method of promotion based on ratios, using 2:1 for naval and 4:1 for ground. Once the game begins, promotion will be on-demand (or manual) only.

Starting commanders will be assigned an age of 21 + Random(5). For each rank they are promoted during the initial race creation their age will be incremented by 2 + Random(5).

I also considered having all officers start at the lowest rank and organically change as ships are built, but that prevents the age modification above and could look very odd. Also, Aurora doesn't actually track age. It tracks career start date vs current date and adds 21 years. Therefore adding 'Age' to starting officers is actually changing their career start date to before the game start date.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Jump Shock

In v1.13, a ship cannot use its jump drive while suffering from jump shock.

For v2.0, this is changed to: "Any ship suffering jump shock cannot transit a jump point, even if the jump point is stabilised".

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Limited Research Administration

A new game-level option called 'Limited Research Administration' has been added for v2.0.

When this is active, scientists will start with 20% + 1 of the normal research administration capacity. For example, a scientist normally starting with 15 admin would start with 4: (15 x 20%) + 1. The maximum starting admin will therefore be 7.

Any increases via experience will increase administration by one or two facilities.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Commercial Jumps

For v1.13, commercial jump drives are required to transit ships with commercial engines and military jump drives are required to transit ships with military engines.

For v2.0, military jump drives can be used for transit by ships with either military or commercial engines (within the normal size limit of the jump drive).

This applies to both standard and squadron jumps.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Automated Refuel Option for Colonies

In v1.13, the various standing or conditional orders that involve refuelling at a colony will use the closest colony with fuel and suitable installations.

For v2.0, you can toggle a colony to be ignored for automated refuelling orders.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Cargo Holds Required

To make it easier to understand transport requirements, I've added the number of standard cargo holds for each type of installation at a colony to the Civilian tab of the Economics window.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Squadrons

For v2.0, I have added an extra organization layer to the Naval Organization window based on a new structure called a ‘Squadron’.

In mechanics terms, a squadron is an administrative sub-division of hangar space on a specific ship. A squadron is created (and named) using the new ‘Create Squadron’ button which becomes visible when a ship is selected. Any number of squadrons can be created for each ship. Once a squadron is created, ships can be dragged into it if they are in the same location as the squadron’s parent ship. Dragged ships will be moved into the hangar of the squadron’s parent ship so sufficient space must exist. If not, you will receive a popup to that effect and the transfer will not happen. You can also drag the entire squadron to a different ship, assuming the same location and sufficient hangar space.

You can ignore squadrons entirely and continue to use the existing mechanics, or perhaps create a single ‘squadron’ for the entire strikegroup for the convenience of having the parasite ships listed under the mothership on the tree view.

Two new movement orders have been added. “Land on Specified Mothership as Squadron” will operate in the same way as the “Land on Specified Mothership (+ Assign)” order with the additional effect that a new squadron is created for the mothership with the name of the landing fleet. All ships in the landing fleet will be assigned to that squadron. “Land and Join Specified Squadron” allows you to choose an existing squadron from a fleet selected as the destination for the movement order. The list of squadrons shown as destination options include the name of the mothership. The ships of the landing fleet will be assigned to the designated squadron once it lands on the squadron’s parent ship.

Using the Detach button while a squadron is selected will create a new fleet with the same name as the squadron and place all ships of the squadron into the fleet. Unlike detaching a sub-fleet, the empty squadron will remain attached to the parent ship because it only exists as an administrative structure of that parent ship. Squadron ships can also be detached individually or as a non-squadron group using the existing mechanics.

After launch, ships will be removed from the squadron. However, ships will remember the last squadron to which they were attached, which is known as their 'Assigned Squadron' (similar to assigned mothership vs current mothership). If you use the "Land on Assigned Mothership" order (now renamed as  "Land on Assigned Mothership / Squadron)" and a ship has an assigned squadron that is present on that mothership, it will be attached to that squadron after landing. Detached ships can also use the “Land and Join Specified Squadron” orders if they are unassigned or wish to join a new squadron.

I decided to use this administrative approach, rather than have squadrons independent of ships, to avoid a situation where the same squadron is scattered across multiple ships or has to be managed in a separate window. To move a squadron to a new ship, you can either use the drag-drop method noted above or detach the squadron from Ship A and send it to Ship B with the “Land on Specified Mothership as Squadron” order. The original (now empty) squadron will remain on Ship A so you may wish to delete that if you do not have a common naming scheme for squadrons.

The Rename, Delete and Award Medal buttons function as normal for squadrons. Deleting a squadron will only affect the administrative function. The squadron ships will remain in the parent ship’s hangar. Award Medal will award the chosen medal to all ships of the squadron. When you click on a squadron in the tree view, a list of squadron ships will be shown with the same information as the equivalent list for a fleet and the ‘Transported Items’ tab will display anything carried by the squadron. The other tabs will be hidden.

This new structure should make it much easier to visualize and manage strike groups.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Reduced Crew for Short Deployments

Currently the accommodation requirement for a ship class is based on the formula below. Personnel in this context is the total of crew and flight berths.

Accommodation = Personnel * (Planned Deployment ^ (1/3))

For v2.0, the accommodation formula above remains in place but it will use a minimum value of 3 for planned deployment (for the formula only). In addition, if planned deployment is less than 3 months, the formula below will be applied to the final crew (once all components have been included).

Crew = Round Down ( Crew * ( (Planned Deployment ^ (1/3)) / (3 ^ (1/3)) ) );

This effectively reduces the crew to the point where 3 months deployment would be the same in accommodation terms as the full crew with the original planned deployment. In other words, the accommodation requirement is the same in both cases but now the crew is smaller. As this is rounded down, it will have a slight beneficial effect for ships with small crews and very short deployments. The minimum crew is 1.

For example, this fighter with the v1.13 rules appears as follows:

Viper MK I class Fighter      300 tons       13 Crew       57.3 BP       TCS 6    TH 48    EM 0
8001 km/s      Armour 1-3       Shields 0-0       HTK 1      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 1.65
Maint Life 3.12 Years     MSP 35    AFR 60%    IFR 0.8%    1YR 5    5YR 81    Max Repair 24.00 MSP
Captain    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 0.9 days    Morale Check Required   

Zeus Drive Systems ZDS-48B Gas Core Drive (1)    Power 48.0    Fuel Use 924%    Signature 48.00    Explosion 20%
Fuel Capacity 10,000 Litres    Range 0.65 billion km (22 hours at full power)

Ares Kinetics VC-2 Viper Cannon (1x2)    Range 40,000km     TS: 8,001 km/s     Power 1.5-1.5      ROF 5       
Hyperion HV-1 Viper Fire Control (1)     Max Range: 64,000 km   TS: 8,000 km/s
R-1B Gaseous Fission Reactor (1)     Total Power Output 1.5    Exp 10%
Artemis-2M Missile Detection Sensor (1)     GPS 3     Range 2.1m km    MCR 192.7k km    Resolution 1

With the new rules, the crew is reduced to 2 and an extra 2 tons are available, which have been used to increase fuel capacity.

Viper MK I class Fighter      300 tons       2 Crew       57.3 BP       TCS 6    TH 48    EM 0
8001 km/s      Armour 1-3       Shields 0-0       HTK 1      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 1.65
Maint Life 3.26 Years     MSP 35    AFR 60%    IFR 0.8%    1YR 5    5YR 75    Max Repair 24 MSP
Captain    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 0.9 days    Morale Check Required   

Zeus Drive Systems ZDS-48B Gas Core Drive (1)    Power 48    Fuel Use 923.76%    Signature 48    Explosion 20%
Fuel Capacity 12,000 Litres    Range 0.78 billion km (27 hours at full power)

Ares Kinetics VC-2 Viper Cannon (1x2)    Range 40,000km     TS: 8,001 km/s     Power 1-1.5     RM 40,000 km    ROF 5       
Hyperion HV-1 Viper Fire Control (1)     Max Range: 64,000 km   TS: 8,000 km/s     84 69 53 38 22 6 0 0 0 0
R-1B Gaseous Fission Reactor (1)     Total Power Output 1.5    Exp 10%
Artemis-2M Missile Detection Sensor (1)     GPS 3     Range 2.1m km    MCR 192.7k km    Resolution 1

This is really intended for flavour purposes as the actual mechanics impact is minimal, beyond reducing the overall crew requirements for naval forces that are fighter-heavy.