v2.0.0 Changes Discussion Thread

[Droll]

Oh I wasn't aware that there was already half-finished features in so thats fair enough. I had assumed that 1.14 was basically only the changes currently listed.

It's fine - no way you could be aware. I am just taking advantage of my current coding enthusiasm while it lasts

I've just read that comment regarding the pirates, I'm assuming that they'll have a toggle that can be switched much like the invaders but otherwise they sound like a really good idea not only from the smaller combat engagements and specialist ship designs (the armed freighter might have a use now) it might generate but also as a justification of the PPV mechanic, which always felt a bit odd to me.

I do wonder if these pirates will have proper ground forces, not to invade entire populated worlds but to take-over automated mining colonies / unguarded sensor outposts. This would also add a ground defense layer to the pirates as now you would want to design outpost garrisons to defend otherwise isolated colonies.

Moreover will they build their own sensor network? Whether that would be buoys or transported installations matters little though based on the comment I suppose that they wont be establishing populated colonies of their own.

[Kiero]

Each retired or dead commander has a default status of (DNR)

Would it be possible for "Story Character" to have that DNR status off as default?

Also, would retired characters die after some time?

[Borealis4x]

I was planning to test the commander changes in a new campaign before rolling them out - that is why I released v1.13. I've also started adding a new spoiler race based on the comments I made in the 'Pirates' thread, so I don't want to release that half-finished because that could lead to unpredictable bugs. The issues so far in v1.13 are minor. The two obfuscation issues only affect new v1.13 code and the game functioned fine without that for the last year, so I am no rush to push out v1.14 just yet.

How advanced will the pirates be? Too much and they become more than the annoyance/distraction they are meant to be but to little and they become an underwhelming threat you have to wonder how they get interdimensional portal tech in the first place.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I was planning to test the commander changes in a new campaign before rolling them out - that is why I released v1.13. I've also started adding a new spoiler race based on the comments I made in the 'Pirates' thread, so I don't want to release that half-finished because that could lead to unpredictable bugs. The issues so far in v1.13 are minor. The two obfuscation issues only affect new v1.13 code and the game functioned fine without that for the last year, so I am no rush to push out v1.14 just yet.

How advanced will the pirates be? Too much and they become more than the annoyance/distraction they are meant to be but to little and they become an underwhelming threat you have to wonder how they get interdimensional portal tech in the first place.

They will probably start around precursor level and advance in technology during the game. Unlike precursors they will have an 'off-map' industrial base for research, etc.. They will also 'build' ships (although in a different way to NPRs), rather than just be allocated ships, so you will slow them down by destroying ships and you may see the same ship appear on different raids. I don't want to give too much away though at this stage.

[Borealis4x]

The new dead/retired mechanics got me thinking whether it'd be a good idea to implement wounded officers as well who have to rest on a planet for a while before being available for active duty as well as a way to 'call up' retired officers.

In order to make it so you don't need to track the ages of retired officers you might call up, It'd be nice if the game tracked their years of service with the navy rather than their actual ages. This would literally just be a name change, as by default Aurora generates officers starting from O4 and at age 21. 21 is really young to be an O4 but is about the right amount of time you'd expect someone of that ranks to have been in the navy.

Alternatively a racial 'minimum age' setting for RP purposes would be nice.

EDIT: Actually 20 years is still quite a long time in to be just an O4. Typically at that stage you are an O6.

[nuclearslurpee]

In order to make it so you don't need to track the ages of retired officers you might call up, It'd be nice if the game tracked their years of service with the navy rather than their actual ages. This would literally just be a name change, as by default Aurora generates officers starting from O4 and at age 21. 21 is really young to be an O4 but is about the right amount of time you'd expect someone of that ranks to have been in the navy.

Alternatively a racial 'minimum age' setting for RP purposes would be nice.

Yes please.

[Garfunkel]

This has been proposed in the past, multiple times, and hopefully, it'll be feasible at some point.

Ideally, we could have male names only, female names only, all names for each type of commander so that for RP purposes we could do every sort of society - maybe women can serve on ships but not on ground forces, or maybe women are scientists only, and so on. Then we should also be able to set the minimum age for service also per type of commander - maybe my species reach maturity at 150 instead of 21. This would also support custom commander systems, like people who have 12+ ranks as they model both officers and non-commissioned officers - as you could then have your navy commanders start as Ensigns at a young age but your administrators start as middle-aged middle-managers.

Even better if we could have entirely separate name themes for different commander types. Maybe my species is actually two different species living in symbiosis but tasks are separated - or maybe my United Earth Alliance draws administrators from Japan while military leaders come from Sweden.

All of this can be RP'd by the player, of course - in my current campaign I only use commander last names since Victorians would not send women into battle but I can't be bothered to change their first names for ten countries - but having them in the game would make things little easier.

[Rince Wind]

I'd much rather have different name themes for different species in my empire.
Commanders would be nice, but are a distant 2nd for me.
I'd love a slider to determine the male to female percentage. I think the new XCOM has something like that.

[Stormtrooper]

I think the new XCOM has something like that.

Wait there's new XCOM?

[Rince Wind]

Well, the 2012 XCOM (+XCOM2) is still the "new" XCOM, compared to the old 90s X-COM. For me at least.

[QuakeIV]

Regarding the transfer fleet to aliens functionality, the impression I got is the list processed in the order presented.  I'd personally suggest moving the weapon fire control a lot higher in the list.

It seems like mis-classifying a battleship that happens to have a survey sensor as a surveyor is a more egregious mistake than mis-classifying an armed surveyor as a battleship, if you get what I am saying.

[Garfunkel]

Multiple suggestions

Please register your account so you can post normally and suggestions belong in this thread:

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10640.0

[Migi]

Fixed gender roles for specific officer types would let you RP a Vorin empire where the women do all the writing and men do all the fighting.
Although given that many officers and wives are assigned/employed in pairs I'd like the option to have two people assigned per position.

[Borealis4x]

I was planning to test the commander changes in a new campaign before rolling them out - that is why I released v1.13. I've also started adding a new spoiler race based on the comments I made in the 'Pirates' thread, so I don't want to release that half-finished because that could lead to unpredictable bugs. The issues so far in v1.13 are minor. The two obfuscation issues only affect new v1.13 code and the game functioned fine without that for the last year, so I am no rush to push out v1.14 just yet.

How advanced will the pirates be? Too much and they become more than the annoyance/distraction they are meant to be but to little and they become an underwhelming threat you have to wonder how they get interdimensional portal tech in the first place.

They will probably start around precursor level and advance in technology during the game. Unlike precursors they will have an 'off-map' industrial base for research, etc.. They will also 'build' ships (although in a different way to NPRs), rather than just be allocated ships, so you will slow them down by destroying ships and you may see the same ship appear on different raids. I don't want to give too much away though at this stage.

I thought about my previous post a little more, and thought of a good lore explanation to explain why these hyper-advanced aliens who were able to setup an entire civilization in a parallel dimension they aren't native to have ships that aren't as advance as you'd think. The ships thy build are made to perform optimally in their parallel dimension and are nerfed draastically when they enter our dimension. Instead of 'teching up' the pirate designs improve simply by them fine-tunning the ships to work better in our dimension.

[QuakeIV]

I was planning to test the commander changes in a new campaign before rolling them out - that is why I released v1.13. I've also started adding a new spoiler race based on the comments I made in the 'Pirates' thread, so I don't want to release that half-finished because that could lead to unpredictable bugs. The issues so far in v1.13 are minor. The two obfuscation issues only affect new v1.13 code and the game functioned fine without that for the last year, so I am no rush to push out v1.14 just yet.

How advanced will the pirates be? Too much and they become more than the annoyance/distraction they are meant to be but to little and they become an underwhelming threat you have to wonder how they get interdimensional portal tech in the first place.

They will probably start around precursor level and advance in technology during the game. Unlike precursors they will have an 'off-map' industrial base for research, etc.. They will also 'build' ships (although in a different way to NPRs), rather than just be allocated ships, so you will slow them down by destroying ships and you may see the same ship appear on different raids. I don't want to give too much away though at this stage.

I thought about my previous post a little more, and thought of a good lore explanation to explain why these hyper-advanced aliens who were able to setup an entire civilization in a parallel dimension they aren't native to have ships that aren't as advance as you'd think. The ships thy build are made to perform optimally in their parallel dimension and are nerfed draastically when they enter our dimension. Instead of 'teching up' the pirate designs improve simply by them fine-tunning the ships to work better in our dimension.

My personal take on this (also the combine in half life) is not that they are actually using unmodified equipment, its that they are awkwardly trying to adapt their stuff to the local dimension, and haven't really figured it out all the way yet.  So in effect they are partly back to square 1 as far as tech goes, the local dimension is similar to but not identical to their own.