v2.0.0 Changes Discussion Thread

[skoormit]

Cargo Handling Modifier = Number of Cargo Shuttle Bays * Admin Command Bonus * Commander Logistics Bonus * Race Cargo Shuttle Load Modifier

Double checking: are the bonuses for Planetary and Sector governors calculated as part of the Admin Command Bonus?

No, its just the admin commanders.

Does the Logistics bonus for governors not do anything?

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Does the Logistics bonus for governors not do anything?

Currently something of an anachronism held over from VB6. It used to be more important when spaceports could stack. I suppose one option would be to multiply the cargo handling modifier by the planetary/sector bonuses if there was a suitable installation on the planet.

[skoormit]

Does the Logistics bonus for governors not do anything?

Currently something of an anachronism held over from VB6. It used to be more important when spaceports could stack. I suppose one option would be to multiply the cargo handling modifier by the planetary/sector bonuses if there was a suitable installation on the planet.

To be fair: most of the time, logistics bonuses (commanders, admins, or governors) don't provide much value. With careful stacking of bonuses I can cut a few days off of each end of a trip. But trips are usually 100+ days long anyway. Getting a 6% or less bump to throughput rate doesn't really move the needle on my economic growth.

And since a fleet of multiple ships loads at the rate of the slowest ship in the fleet, logistics bonuses on ship commanders matter almost not at all.

But managing logistics-related personnel is still fun for flavor.
It's fun to drop a logistics-expert governor on a fresh colony and imagine them tightly overseeing the unloading of the first wave or two of supply fleets as the colony gets boots on the ground, and then making way for a governor who has more ability to actually produce things.

Why not just make the planet/sector governor bonuses just additional multipliers on the formula? I'd say even regardless of the presence of suitable installations. It's really not something a min/maxer can abuse to much effect.

[Bluebreaker]

If a civilian freighter is lost to enemy action while carrying an installation, the amount lost will be added back to the demand of the destination population.

What about the case where the freighter is lost before it loads the installation?

[Droll]

If a civilian freighter is lost to enemy action while carrying an installation, the amount lost will be added back to the demand of the destination population.

What about the case where the freighter is lost before it loads the installation?

This is a good edge-case since the post implies that what would happen in this case would be:

1 - Freighter assigns itself to the transport -x installation from demand
2 - Freighter is destroyed without cargo +0 of installation is added

This means that the demand would be x lower than what it should be, which results in underfilling in this specific case.

[Bluebreaker]

If a civilian freighter is lost to enemy action while carrying an installation, the amount lost will be added back to the demand of the destination population.

What about the case where the freighter is lost before it loads the installation?

This is a good edge-case since the post implies that what would happen in this case would be:

1 - Freighter assigns itself to the transport -x installation from demand
2 - Freighter is destroyed without cargo +0 of installation is added

This means that the demand would be x lower than what it should be, which results in underfilling in this specific case.

It also means supply gets lowered and never "replenished" despite not being taken.

[serger]

Have a question about new feature with Minimum [Squadron] Jump Engine Size
(http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=12523.msg151588#msg151588)

All jump drives, regardless of size, can perform a standard transit for any number of ships with the matching engine type.

Am I understand this line correctly, that any (even fighter-size) jump tender with minimal size jump drive will have an ability to open tunnels for any (even million-tonnes) ship, if only she have the same engine type and it will be standard transit?

[kilo]

Have a question about new feature with Minimum [Squadron] Jump Engine Size
(http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=12523.msg151588#msg151588)

All jump drives, regardless of size, can perform a standard transit for any number of ships with the matching engine type.

Am I understand this line correctly, that any (even fighter-size) jump tender with minimal size jump drive will have an ability to open tunnels for any (even million-tonnes) ship, if only she have the same engine type and it will be standard transit?

If this was true, it would make JP transit a lot easier and every ship could carry some small emergency jump drive, allowing it to transfer between systems. I have seen AI fleets getting stuck after going through a jump gate of mine into my system without having the ability to go home. This would be kind of nice I guess.
I am pretty sure this is not true though. Why would you ever build a large civilian jump drive in that case? Civilian vessels do not care about jump shock and therefore would carry the smalles jump drive possible at all times. Hell even military vessels could do this. All they needed is a scout checking the other side of the gate.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Have a question about new feature with Minimum [Squadron] Jump Engine Size
(http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=12523.msg151588#msg151588)

All jump drives, regardless of size, can perform a standard transit for any number of ships with the matching engine type.

Am I understand this line correctly, that any (even fighter-size) jump tender with minimal size jump drive will have an ability to open tunnels for any (even million-tonnes) ship, if only she have the same engine type and it will be standard transit?

I was referring to the physical size of the jump drive. The max size that can be jumped will still apply. I've updated the text to make this clearer.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

If a civilian freighter is lost to enemy action while carrying an installation, the amount lost will be added back to the demand of the destination population.

What about the case where the freighter is lost before it loads the installation?

Yes, I knew about this last night but was too tired to add it. So I went to bed wondering if anyone would notice. Of course someone noticed - its Aurora

Anyway, its been added now. If a civilian freighter is lost to enemy action before loading an installation, the amount lost will be added back to the supply of the pickup population and to the demand of the destination population.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Does the Logistics bonus for governors not do anything?

Currently something of an anachronism held over from VB6. It used to be more important when spaceports could stack. I suppose one option would be to multiply the cargo handling modifier by the planetary/sector bonuses if there was a suitable installation on the planet.

To be fair: most of the time, logistics bonuses (commanders, admins, or governors) don't provide much value. With careful stacking of bonuses I can cut a few days off of each end of a trip. But trips are usually 100+ days long anyway. Getting a 6% or less bump to throughput rate doesn't really move the needle on my economic growth.

And since a fleet of multiple ships loads at the rate of the slowest ship in the fleet, logistics bonuses on ship commanders matter almost not at all.

But managing logistics-related personnel is still fun for flavor.
It's fun to drop a logistics-expert governor on a fresh colony and imagine them tightly overseeing the unloading of the first wave or two of supply fleets as the colony gets boots on the ground, and then making way for a governor who has more ability to actually produce things.

Why not just make the planet/sector governor bonuses just additional multipliers on the formula? I'd say even regardless of the presence of suitable installations. It's really not something a min/maxer can abuse to much effect.

Yes, good idea. I've implemented that for v1.14
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=12523.msg151607#msg151607

[Jorgen_CAB]

I was thinking a bit more of the civilian contract and the supply and demand of installations or components.

Would it be impossible to make it so that if a colony produce any specific installation/component we can tell the colony to automatically add it to the supply of items for civilian contracts.

If we could do this it would really simplify some automation of how you use civilian contracts... I could just tell my colony to automatically offer all Automines to be added to the supply of Automines. Then the civilians will automatically pick them up and move them to wherever you have put a demand for Automines.

This probably would not require a lot of code to be written and it would immensely help with automation of moving installations using the civilians without complicating things or being prone to bugs. Just a simple flag for any production item if it should be automatically added to "supply" or not.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I was also thinking about the new pirates and using automatic patrols in your own space.

It would be good if we could have a ship "programmed" to patrol a specific route and then using the automatic "Refuel, Resupply & Overhaul" order and once it has done this it will again continue with its programmed patrol order.

Basically a ship that is on a repeating cycle of order who use the "Resupply, Refuel and Overhaul" order will continue its cycled orders after the overhauls is done. It would require the game to add an automatic order to both return home and back to the last ordered end point and then add the cycled order back to the ship.

We could also require this cycled order to be a saved order or something as well if that makes things simpler.

This would help us set up patrol orders with more "normal" ships... I could still have my patrol ships at 3-6 months as they will regularly overhaul and rest the crew as necessary automatically and then resume their duties. Otherwise I have to build my ships with unnaturally long overhaul and crew times just so I don't get worn out from having to reassign them their patrol orders after each overhaul is done.

Another idea would be an automatic patrol order that you can issue to a ship in a system. The ship will automatically (sort of randomly) patrol between colonies, orbital mining sites, stations or fuel harvesting sites... they could even escort civilian ships randomly as well. Then when they meet their crew time limit they return to port for  refuel and overhaul like any other normal ship and then resume their patrol work afterward. You just have to make sure there is an overhaul point in the same system or they will return to a different system and then patrol from there.

[nuclearslurpee]

I was also thinking about the new pirates and using automatic patrols in your own space.

It would be good if we could have a ship "programmed" to patrol a specific route and then using the automatic "Refuel, Resupply & Overhaul" order and once it has done this it will again continue with its programmed patrol order.

Basically a ship that is on a repeating cycle of order who use the "Resupply, Refuel and Overhaul" order will continue its cycled orders after the overhauls is done. It would require the game to add an automatic order to both return home and back to the last ordered end point and then add the cycled order back to the ship.

We could also require this cycled order to be a saved order or something as well if that makes things simpler.

This would help us set up patrol orders with more "normal" ships... I could still have my patrol ships at 3-6 months as they will regularly overhaul and rest the crew as necessary automatically and then resume their duties. Otherwise I have to build my ships with unnaturally long overhaul and crew times just so I don't get worn out from having to reassign them their patrol orders after each overhaul is done.

Another idea would be an automatic patrol order that you can issue to a ship in a system. The ship will automatically (sort of randomly) patrol between colonies, orbital mining sites, stations or fuel harvesting sites... they could even escort civilian ships randomly as well. Then when they meet their crew time limit they return to port for  refuel and overhaul like any other normal ship and then resume their patrol work afterward. You just have to make sure there is an overhaul point in the same system or they will return to a different system and then patrol from there.

The only missing step of the automation at present is that you cannot cycle the order when an overhaul is involved, so really this boils down to changing the order rules so that a ship can go into overhaul and resume following orders when it is done, which I think most players would like to have in general. I can't foresee too many problems with allowing this, and it is probably easier than implementing a new "patrol area" standing order.

[Droll]

I was also thinking about the new pirates and using automatic patrols in your own space.

It would be good if we could have a ship "programmed" to patrol a specific route and then using the automatic "Refuel, Resupply & Overhaul" order and once it has done this it will again continue with its programmed patrol order.

Basically a ship that is on a repeating cycle of order who use the "Resupply, Refuel and Overhaul" order will continue its cycled orders after the overhauls is done. It would require the game to add an automatic order to both return home and back to the last ordered end point and then add the cycled order back to the ship.

We could also require this cycled order to be a saved order or something as well if that makes things simpler.

This would help us set up patrol orders with more "normal" ships... I could still have my patrol ships at 3-6 months as they will regularly overhaul and rest the crew as necessary automatically and then resume their duties. Otherwise I have to build my ships with unnaturally long overhaul and crew times just so I don't get worn out from having to reassign them their patrol orders after each overhaul is done.

Another idea would be an automatic patrol order that you can issue to a ship in a system. The ship will automatically (sort of randomly) patrol between colonies, orbital mining sites, stations or fuel harvesting sites... they could even escort civilian ships randomly as well. Then when they meet their crew time limit they return to port for  refuel and overhaul like any other normal ship and then resume their patrol work afterward. You just have to make sure there is an overhaul point in the same system or they will return to a different system and then patrol from there.

The only missing step of the automation at present is that you cannot cycle the order when an overhaul is involved, so really this boils down to changing the order rules so that a ship can go into overhaul and resume following orders when it is done, which I think most players would like to have in general. I can't foresee too many problems with allowing this, and it is probably easier than implementing a new "patrol area" standing order.

This in combination with speed settings and order delays would allow players to create comprehensive patrol patterns without having to repeatedly check on their patrols. Which for large systems with spread out JPs could become very numerous.