Having wrapped up my Starfire campaign, I'm getting back into Aurora in preparation for starting an Aurora campaign, but it is slow going. But I'm getting there. I thought I'd post a short message on my progress getting back into Aurora.
I started with a conventional start, just so I get the hang of researching stuff, particularly the ground unit stuff, from the start. There have been a lot of changes since the last time I played Aurora, so there were a lot of false starts, dead-ends, and more than a little frustration, but I've mostly got it worked out, I think. At least the basics. I successfully converted my civilization to TN, explored the solar system and set up extra-planetary mines, then researched and developed jump tech, and built interstellar survey ships. I explored several jumps out from Sol and set up interstellar outposts and one colony on a promising site two jumps from Earth.
During all of this, I built up a smallish navy with six 6,000 ton frigates, two 15,000 ton light cruisers, and two 20,000 ton jump cruisers, all armed with various lasers. Fleet speed was 2,000 kps as this is an early fleet. Also, I built some light infantry troops and successfully integrated them into higher level organizations, and then focused on building anti-ship STO units with my best beam weapon, as I thought the whole STO concept is very cool.
Then an NPR ship appeared in the Solar System, shocking me. I panicked and sent my fleet out to intercept, but it didn't head for Earth, it just flitted around from system-body to system-body, and I quickly realized two things. First, it wasn't an immediate threat, and second, it was more than twice as fast as my fleet at 4,400 KPS. I sent the fleet home and settled for watching it move around.
At this point I decided I had learned about as much as I was going to from this run-through, but I wanted to get some experience in combat. So, I designed and built some 1,000 ton missile boats for when the aliens returned. I had built four by the time they came back, so I sent them out to attack the perfidious aliens. After much experimentation with the fire control settings, I managed to launch my missiles at the dastardly aliens, and although it took all thirty-two of the attack group's missiles, I did manage to destroy it. I congratulated myself on my prowess and sent my ships back to reload.
A few days later another enemy ship showed up, and I sent my interceptors out again. This time they were destroyed short of the target by a second group of small (>1000 ton) enemy ships that appeared out of nowhere. This was familiar to me from the old days. My sensors aren't very good at this early stage, and the enemy ships went from being undetected to within firing range in one too-large time advance. The short story is - my valiant interceptors were destroyed by the back-stabbing alien aggressors. So, I sent out my main fleet to teach a lesson to the aliens.
This is the result:
As you can see, my fleet did not survive. The alien ships then went on to attack Earth, destroying my shipyards and the civilian ships in orbit. At that point I remembered that I had STO ground forces, so I figured out how to use them and they opened fire. They proved to be very effective and destroyed the aliens in short order. I had a lot of them because I mostly kept my ground construction centers building STO units.
The aliens obligingly sent a second fleet to their deaths over the Earth, and then a third. Which I thought was foolish and perhaps a problem with the program. But they did try to take out my STO's and they did do some damage. It was only after the death of the third fleet that I realized the sneaky and dastardly aliens had managed to land a ground force on Earth! So, I figured this was my chance to get some experience with ground combat, so I "Instant Builded" a ground force based on light ground vehicles with crew-served anti-personnel weapons and we were off to the war.
The fighting taught me a bit about the ground combat system, and more about the aftermath of replacements and series and things like that. At this point I'm going to move on to a new Aurora campaign with two player races in the same system, with a set up designed to have them battle over control of a third location, perhaps a rich mining site. This campaign will be focused on ground combat to the exclusion of all else, as this is where I feel I'm the weakest.
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