Having gotten up to date on this I wanted to say that I'm enjoying this quite a bit. Really liking the colonial-era style of limited flare-ups between the powers instead of all-out galactic war, although things keep escalating with each incident and I can't help wondering what will happen first - massive war between humans or an alien invasion?
Limited conflict and competition between the powers is something I also enjoy. So far no power has found it necessary to target anothers civilians or commercial ships, for instance, so they were always left alone. Skirmishes over mining outposts or dubious claims in outer space are one thing, but total war at home is rarely justified. That's also something you can't get when interacting with NPRs and the mechanics of Aurora sometimes make it difficult to simulate a limited conflict. For instance in order to start a ground war you need to set the other race as hostile, which starts ground fighting on every body where you and the enemy both have a colony (this is the real reason why Argentina invaded Russia during the first Machholz incident). If a situation comes up where I want to start ground fighting between two powers on one body but not on Earth or other unrelated colonies I'll either skip it and just delete one side if it's clearly inferior or simulate the fighting by recreating the forces in a different game or something.
More serious conflict or Galactic War is something better suited to multi-system empires that don't all share one planet where the majority of their industry is located. The powers which have moved off of Earth are more likely to enter a larger war, a trend which will continue if industrial centers move out of Sol and further away from another.
As for what the future holds, who knows? I hear Russia was preparing to invade Venus
One thing I want to do is a summary once the governments stabilize again after this last crisis, it's been a while since we had a comparison and laid out the agenda for each power.
With the Consortium now establishing what is basically a puppet state from the ex-EU Martian colony, I can't help but wonder how the PRL will respond as their chief competitor Will they continue looking to other systems or maybe consider the value of tightening their own control of the solar system?
Not much has changed for the PRL in the overall strategic situation. The Consortium now has even more mines and population on Mars, but that doesn't really matter as they were already mining more than they could use of Mars's products (Corundium and Duranium). It's going to become interesting once the Consortium gains an interest in serious extrasolar exploitation as their 0.5 Gallicite Comet in Sol is not going to last them forever.
The option of an eventual direct assault on Mars has gained and lost some appeal. Gained some because the EU is now eliminated as a power to potentially take issue with an attack on the planet and lost some because the Consortium now has full control over the world, including some defected STO defense guns from the EU, with no other power having a foothold.
I'm curious, by the way: how do you work out what will happen during some of the incidents and other clashes? Sometimes it's easy - ram two fleets together and see what happens - but I'm thinking of examples where one side sets a trap with an obvious bait and the main fleet hidden in deep space. As the player you have to decide when it's reasonable or not that the other side would "fall for it",
The key is discipline, you should act as you are playing alone against AI or you could go for what creates the most interesting setup considering the story you want to tell.
I practice discipline in the details of engagements but larger decisions and kicking off a campaign in the first place are role-played, pushing the story in a direction I want to go. I've always wanted a colonial nation to split off from a central government, for instance
Often I have an idea for a scenario which I think might be interesting and then check to see if it's possible or plausible, for instance by checking the intel records of a given empire to see if they have the necessary information required for something. That may be something like the assault on Procyon's Rest, where the PRL had info on the nature of the Qian stations due to having encountered them before.
In general I roleplay the human powers as knowing where each others colonies are as you wouldn't be able to keep their existence or location secret if a civilian or a large enough military population is present. They also have at least a general idea about the capabilities of each others vessels, if no exact numbers. They all do spy on each other and analyse the footage and readings of the others ships, which is not hard to do as most assets are stationed permanently in inner Sol.
As for situations where one side is baiting or ambushing another I do check their respective intel and make estimates based on the information they have available. Does one side know the location of the others ships? At what ranges can one expect the opponent to detect your own ships? How far away does this fleet have to stay from a body to avoid detection by a single DSTS? Do I expect to have a speed advantage, giving me the option of disengaging?
There are a few situations where such information has made a difference. For instance, the fleets stationed in deep space in the first and third Machholz incident were not detected by the opposing force prematurely, their estimates about how far away to stay to avoid detection but be close enough to respond to a situation worked out.
Then there was the confrontation between the Russian navy and parts of the PRL fleet when they were racing to colonize what is now Novokutznetsk, the PRL commander calculated that he could not safely absorb a volley based on prior experience with Russian missile effectiveness. Some consideration for them firing being just a bluff or not later, he stepped down and turned around. I think the commander here also was a considerate type or something along those lines, which is something else I look up when considering such decisions. Which ships did or didn't desert during the independence war was also informed by commander origin and personality (and I may be guilty of picking exactly the ships that would desert to join the task force sent to retake Taíno.
There was actually a second Taíno-born commander in that group, also commanding a destroyer. However the conditions I set for her defection never occured, I imagined her to be more reluctant due to personality.)
The whole Salto ambush in the independence war was also interesting here, the EU *did* actually have a listening post with 10 DSTS in the system supposed to prevent exactly such a scenario, only it's orbit put it on the farthest point from the Sol JP. There it wasn't strong enough to detect the 680 thermal Taíno destroyer squadron heading towards the JP or the 475 thermal Consortium frigates leaving the Salto colony. The other powers don't know the EU operates that listening post and they would absolutely have reacted differently and not jumped in there if they'd detected them. In order to determine if the ambush was possible at all it was necessary to calculate if the ships could make it there before the EU task group made it to the JP. They could, but only because they were escorting a very slow troop transport.
During the ambush the listening post was closer to where LP1 is currently. Unfortunately we can't select the detection radius for arbitrary signatures anymore.do you have an approach for this or is the decision based on whatever makes the most interesting story and/or most exciting space combat?
I typically do have a direction or a few options in mind for the story to go and do accept results based on the outcome of battles, but I'm at least somewhat guilty for orchestrating events to go in the direction I want. I was, for one thing, totally expecting the Martian navy to be inferior to the EU fleet and wanted the independence war not to just be a single battle. So I decided the EU would try and go after the Taíno colony first, which weakened them for the final battle. I justified that a bit with that they didn't have the political will for a frontal assault, which in turn fits as I gave them political waffling and indecisiveness as a trait.
Every power has their own personality which influences how they approach things.
Race to the Stars is the best C# fiction imo.
Awww, thanks <3 It's nice for me to hear you guys are reading my story, it helps keep me going.
As for the future, I've taken a break from Aurora for the past couple weeks. With 1.12 out now there's a temptation to start a new game, but I've got this one in an interesting position with several established empires. Despite all the fixes I don't think there's anything in there that I really can't live without. There's a chance of spaceships in the near future
