Steve,
Re your example Galactic maps - would all stars be visible on the map from commencement of game or would one need to locate them as per the "standard" version.
Also do you envisage having the same average number of stars / galaxies as per the standard - i.e 1,000.
DavidR
All systems will be visible at the start and you will know what stars are in each system. However, the planets, moons, asteroids, etc for each system will only be generated when the first ship makes an FTL jump to that system. I am using 250 systems for my test game. The total number of systems can be lower than standard Aurora as one of the reasons for the high number is avoiding a lot of jump point loops, rather than the intention to visit every system.
I currently have two gravitional survey ships and one geological survey ship at work in Sol, using default orders. Everything is working OK so far and the ships are accelerating and decelerating by themselves as required. It is taking significantly longer to carry out surveys than before. One other difference from standard Aurora is that orbital movement now takes place during the regular movement phase rather than during the 5-day increment. This is a slight overhead but it will be offset by the fact that no jump chain calculations will be required when I get around to pathfinding for NPRs and Civs.
One other note is that hyper drive and lagrange points won't be in Aurora FTL. You will now be able to reach much higher speeds given sufficient time so travel between different stars in the same system will be far more practical.
Steve
