v2.0.0 Changes Discussion Thread

[Andrew]

Hmm. If I understand you correctly, you are positing the existence of an entire class of people who both play Aurora but also don’t remember the orbital elements from middle–school? That’s crazy talk.

Orbital mechanics is not middle school, I  have a 30 year old physics degree and I did not remember that terminology it is certainly not common knowledge. I probably came across it in A-Level or University Physics or maths but the number of people who take those qualifications is not high and the number who remember all the details after 30 years of not using them is lower. (Or their foreign equivalants)

[RougeNPS]

We were taught basic orbital mechanics in my high school.

It was so poorly done i just went and researched it on my own.

Really on Astrophysicists and Sci-Fi writers actually use the terminology to be honest.

Unless you spend a lot of time on Atomic Rockets and read about orbital mechanics for fun like i do.

[ZimRathbone]

Hmm. If I understand you correctly, you are positing the existence of an entire class of people who both play Aurora but also don’t remember the orbital elements from middle–school? That’s crazy talk.

Orbital mechanics is not middle school, I  have a 30 year old physics degree and I did not remember that terminology it is certainly not common knowledge. I probably came across it in A-Level or University Physics or maths but the number of people who take those qualifications is not high and the number who remember all the details after 30 years of not using them is lower. (Or their foreign equivalants)

Yeah, gotta say that I hadn't recalled that term from my OU Cosmology & Planetary Science course last century (did find it when I went and looked up the textbooks tho)

[db48x]

I was being somewhat facetious. I do expect the better students to have learned enough that they know why we use the orbital elements instead of just an XYZ position and a momentum in each of the XYZ directions and that they could recreate the orbital elements by combining other bits of knowledge of geometry and physics, but there’s really very little need for the average person to memorize their customary names.

The actual names are a mixed bag. Inclination and eccentricity are ok because they are both words that people use or hear from time to time, with analogous meanings. “Longitude of the ascending node” is wordy but understandable. But “argument of the periapsis” is downright obscure, and “true anomaly” is completely terrible.

I still think that misusing the word “inclination” merely because it is short is a bad idea. Can we come up with any other word or phrase at all, and use that instead? Maybe just call it the “angle of the long axis” or something. Does anyone else have any suggestions?

[SpaceCowboy]

I still think that misusing the word “inclination” merely because it is short is a bad idea. Can we come up with any other word or phrase at all, and use that instead? Maybe just call it the “angle of the long axis” or something. Does anyone else have any suggestions?

How about "orientation"?

[Bremen]

After giving it some thought and listening to feedback on my current campaign, I have decided to change the design philosophy of Aether Raiders. Rather than being focused on speed and additional ECM, they will have cloaking devices and thermal reduction technology. Speed and ECM will be 'normal' for a race of their general tech level.

The primary reason for the change is that high speed, short-range missiles and/or fast beam fighters are probably the best way to counter high speed / high ECM and I don't want to force players (or myself) to adopt a specific philosophy. The new raiders, which I will test in the same campaign as the new orbital mechanics, will be hard to track down, but no more difficult to destroy than other similar tech level ships. Guarding against them and hunting them down will now be viable with a wider range of design philosophies.

EDIT: Their starting research points are also being reduced from Precursor-level to about 2/3rds Precursor-level.

For what it's worth, I'm glad to hear this. I think the idea of a special enemy that somewhat negated the most common tactics was actually a really cool one, but sadly I think their old form just wasn't a great fit for Aurora mechanics as they stand. Kind of reminds me of why the X-Com devs said they didn't put EXALT assault soldiers in the game - yes, it added new tactics, but it also made their playtesters scream in frustration when an enemy crossed to entire screen to slide into a flank and one shot the player's best soldier with a point blank shotgun.

Cloaked and thermal dampened raiders are going to be interesting since it's not a matter of having enough firepower to stop them, but protecting your more fragile assets.

[db48x]

I still think that misusing the word “inclination” merely because it is short is a bad idea. Can we come up with any other word or phrase at all, and use that instead? Maybe just call it the “angle of the long axis” or something. Does anyone else have any suggestions?

How about "orientation"?

That works!

[DFNewb]

I haven't gone through this whole thread but I noticed on your patch / dev notes calling the new version v2.0, so I am guessing its not gonna be called v1.14 anymore cause you added so many new and cool features?

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I haven't gone through this whole thread but I noticed on your patch / dev notes calling the new version v2.0, so I am guessing its not gonna be called v1.14 anymore cause you added so many new and cool features?

Yes, going to be v2.0 now. I'm not changing the thread title though to avoid confusion over the many posts that talk about v1.14 as the next one.

[Kiero]

Yes, going to be v2.0 now. I'm not changing the thread title though to avoid confusion over the many posts that talk about v1.14 as the next one.

Maybe "v1.14.0 / v2.0 Changes Discussion Thread"?

[Neophyte]

re: new interrupts - now how am I going to RP my fleets being commanded by complete idiots who sat staring blankly at a wall for 5 days until they suddenly exploded?!?

(it's me, the complete idiot is always me)

[nuclearslurpee]

Good change to NPR generation to ensure that they are not beyond the capability of the player to deal with.

Would be great to see this paired with a parallel change to help keep newly generated NPRs from being so easily outpaced by the players. I've mentioned previously that uncapping the initial number of labs, etc. would be a big help with this as newly generated NPRs are currently limited to 50 initial labs regardless of population.

[Desdinova]

Would it make more sense to calculate the average colony cost for elliptical orbits? It just seems like there's a lot of extra calculations with the new eccentricity system that could lead to a serious performance hit.

[AlStar]

Would it make more sense to calculate the average colony cost for elliptical orbits? It just seems like there's a lot of extra calculations with the new eccentricity system that could lead to a serious performance hit.

Taking an average would take away some of the fun scenarios that Steve is hoping to get out of this - like planets that are in the perfectly habitable range at one side of their orbit, but end up way out past the Oort cloud at the other end. As it currently is, depending on how long the orbit is and where in its orbit the planet currently is, you might get many (Earth) years worth of use out of the planet before it starts freezing; whereas an average would just cause the planet to be useless.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Would it make more sense to calculate the average colony cost for elliptical orbits? It just seems like there's a lot of extra calculations with the new eccentricity system that could lead to a serious performance hit.

Performance doesn't seem to be suffering so far. I've just started a new campaign though, so I will see how it goes once there are a lot of systems in play. Besides, this is an optional change.

As someone else replied, the object of the change is to create interesting scenarios for colonies. I've already found a couple of terrestrial worlds with temperature ranges that are so wide that you cannot terraform them to ideal, but you can bring the colony cost to a fairly low amount. The planet I am currently terraforming has a 64 degree difference. If you terraform to the middle of the human tolerance range (which I am trying to do now), the planet will move between -18C and 46C during its orbit, exceeding human tolerance by 8 degrees at either end of the range, which makes it very interesting from a roleplay/story perspective.