v2.0.0 Changes Discussion Thread

[Barkhorn]

"For v2.0, you can toggle a colony to be ignored for automated refuelling orders."

Hallelujah!

[nuclearslurpee]

There is a cap though when expanding labs for how many parallel projects that are possible to run at the same time before running out of projects, with max labs on all of them.

The main concern is that tech costs range from something like 1000 - 5,000,000 RP (x5000 increase) while Research Rate ranges from 200 - 1500 (x7.5 increase). With lower admin caps you should in theory hit the cap of researching every potential available tech in parallel with maximum number of labs much sooner in your lab expansion, and you should be frustrated much earlier that that by having nothing useful to put labs on.

My assumption is that by the time a player race is concerned about such things, you would have multiple scientists in every field with very good, if not maximum, research and admin skills. Scientist careers are something like 40 years long unless they die in an accident, etc., which is plenty of time to receive a lot of skill-ups and with a robust array of academies you should not have much problem with generating and training new younger scientists to keep up a high quality of replacements in each field. Even if you choose to arbitrarily limit some techs (usually weapons, e.g. beam-only games) there are enough useful techs in the game that you can maintain several dozen more or less ongoing projects particularly if you diversify over time (ECM/ECCM, shields, cloaking, new weapon types, etc.).

As far as the tech cost scaling by ~2x per level, this is by design as it is pretty much expected that the player will hit a "plateau" after the early techs beyond which progress is quite slow and more about incremental advantages and new capabilities. Frankly the game really isn't balanced for playing up to MaxTech as some have found.

[Paul M]

One comment on the whole "laboratory" system.  The trouble with this is it is utterly artificial.  Research is not something you can direct like this, and though it will likely upset the munchkins greatly I'd suggest getting rid of the laboratory.   I would suggest replacing it with a population based research rate:  population*population_factor*(base_racial_research_rate+modifiers)*(multipliers).  I would then have the lead scientist in each field's skill be a modifier or a multiplier if that makes it better from a game perspective.  I would have the increase research rate be a modifier or a multiplier or a change to the population factor (again based on what makes more game sense).  Then I would have different single things you can build on a planet that add a flat bonus.  These reflect things like LHD, ITER or other large scale science mega projects.  They would add a modifier to a particular line of research, but should be rather expensive to produce.

This could be then further extended by making it possible for a race to be gifted or not so gifted in one field or another.  I would also make the population_factor somewhat dependent on the population so you get the most research from a large population but a new colony gives more per population up to a point then it drops down to reflect the fact that the new colony may have interesting new aspects (and this could again be developed so a colony only gives the bonus to one line or more lines of research).  Basically a new colony has the potential for inspiring new and exciting developments until well they are all found.

The cost of this should be credits (except the special buildings which clearly could have a mineral cost).  For each line of research the player chooses the development queue and they are worked on in that order (just as now).

The research is in all available fields at the same time.  There is no real way to do the sorta crazy "we research only this thing" that is done and especially not the dramatic swapping that is done.  The government could of course give extra money to one research area and increase its speed but that should cause a drop in the rate of the others.  There are only so many students after all and if they are researching propulsion then none are there to do other stuff and the other research slows down.

Ruins could then yield Research points in a field which would be dumped into a current research field or be specific to one type of item and would be available when that was under development.  There could also be find "x RPs" which are added to all fields representing finding a science facility.

The lead scientists skill in the field and his administration skill should both modify the number of RPs he produces. 

This to me represents "research" more realistically.  It is a factor of the number of universities, corporate research groups, and government sponsored laboratories rather than a pool of "laboratories" shuffled around to research x-ray lasers one week and anti-gravity tanks the next.

[nuclearslurpee]

I have always considered that a "laboratory" in Aurora actually represents a large set of research infrastructure including various institutes, user facilities, server farms, universities and other educational institutions, and others all of which might be grouped purely as an administrative unit or might be earmarked to support a flagship facility - ITER, LHC, and so on. All of course highly abstracted, with your "scientist" really being the head of a quite large research division or department. I think this is generally the best way to look at planetary facilities in Aurora, not as single discrete units but rather as reflecting the infrastructure in place to direct the efforts of the employed population towards the goals of your space empire - which can then be shipped around to the desired colonies to direct the efforts of the entire space empire, an important element in a game which has space logistics at its heart I would say.

I will agree that it is quite unrealistic to have labs be hot-swapped at a moment's notice, but frankly it is the same issue we have with construction factories so it is not unique to labs. We could in principle implement some kind of "retooling" mechanic for labs, factories, etc. but while I don't think this would be a "bad" mechanic I do think it is not well-suited for Aurora. It adds simulationism, but not really interesting decisions besides forcing a particular style of gameplay - what I mean by this is that it does force the player to "intelligently" set their industrial or research priorities and only change them slowly, but this doesn't actually add any mechanical depth to the game as the player is only incentivized to make a change when their hand is forced by the game situation. The economic depth of mechanics is not enough that a game of micromanaging the economic balance is really engaging.

IMO the mechanics work best as they are, as far as Aurora works, because the flexibility while it may not be the "most realistic" allows freedom of roleplay while maintaining good balance of gameplay. For those who want a very specific style of play Aurora has always offered great flexibility to create house rules to model whatever we want.

[Scandinavian]

One thing I think maybe should be changed is subdividing the current laboratories (10x factory cargo size, 1 mil pop, 2400 construction cost, 200 RP generated) into 10 factory-sized facilities (scaling scientist admin capacity accordingly). Partly out of a desire to avoid having to deal with partial loading of facilities, which Aurora handles... acceptably but not well. And partly out of a desire to make conventional starts more practical (when you can only churn out 1 lab every 3 years you get a strange outcome where you lay the last brick and suddenly your research capacity is increased by 20 %).

Ideally I'd want to turn research point generation into a pool that scientists draw from until her project is fully funded (per her admin cap), then the next scientist in the queue gets to draw, etc. down the priority queue (with the possibility to set a cap on how much a given scientist can draw, e.g. if you want to synchronize certain projects, or want to spread out research for RP reasons). But that is a much more intrusive change than just re-scaling the installation size.

(Also, the same logic could be applied to ground forces formations and even factory construction, giving all non-shipyard planetary production a unified mechanic and interface. Which seems aesthetically pleasing, reasonable and in line with the ambition to unify more game mechanics in this edition.)

[Bremen]

One thing I think maybe should be changed is subdividing the current laboratories (10x factory cargo size, 1 mil pop, 2400 construction cost, 200 RP generated) into 10 factory-sized facilities (scaling scientist admin capacity accordingly). Partly out of a desire to avoid having to deal with partial loading of facilities, which Aurora handles... acceptably but not well. And partly out of a desire to make conventional starts more practical (when you can only churn out 1 lab every 3 years you get a strange outcome where you lay the last brick and suddenly your research capacity is increased by 20 %).

Ideally I'd want to turn research point generation into a pool that scientists draw from until her project is fully funded (per her admin cap), then the next scientist in the queue gets to draw, etc. down the priority queue (with the possibility to set a cap on how much a given scientist can draw, e.g. if you want to synchronize certain projects, or want to spread out research for RP reasons). But that is a much more intrusive change than just re-scaling the installation size.

(Also, the same logic could be applied to ground forces formations and even factory construction, giving all non-shipyard planetary production a unified mechanic and interface. Which seems aesthetically pleasing, reasonable and in line with the ambition to unify more game mechanics in this edition.)

IIRC Steve was considering switching ground force production to use a similar system to construction/ordinance/fighter factories, though I don't remember if that ever went through.

Honestly, I'd really love for facility size to be standardized as much as possible,  if only because then I wouldn't have to keep looking up how many freighters/how much to repeat every time I wanted to move something. Maybe not feasible for spaceports, since those kind of feel like it's supposed to be a big hauling job to make a colony "established", and I get the reasoning involved in refueling stations and forced labor stuff being hard to move. But I'd love it if infra, research facilities, terraforming installations, ground force training, etc all got standardized at 25,000 tons while keeping the same efficiency per ton.

[nuclearslurpee]

IIRC Steve was considering switching ground force production to use a similar system to construction/ordinance/fighter factories, though I don't remember if that ever went through.

I know it has not yet been done, but I sincerely hope Steve chooses to implement this. Although the change to double generation of ground (and naval) officers should help indirectly since the necessary formation sizes for efficient use of commanders will be reduced somewhat, but this isn't really a fix per se.

Honestly, I'd really love for facility size to be standardized as much as possible,  if only because then I wouldn't have to keep looking up how many freighters/how much to repeat every time I wanted to move something. Maybe not feasible for spaceports, since those kind of feel like it's supposed to be a big hauling job to make a colony "established", and I get the reasoning involved in refueling stations and forced labor stuff being hard to move. But I'd love it if infra, research facilities, terraforming installations, ground force training, etc all got standardized at 25,000 tons while keeping the same efficiency per ton.

I'd probably not want to see standardization at a single size, flavor-wise it makes sense that different things should be at different sizes, but I do think collapsing the sizes into more comprehensible values would be very helpful. Something like 2,500-tons for infrastructure, 25,000 tons for most production facilities, and 250,000 tons for the large facilities (terraformer, lab, GFTC, etc.) makes sense. This is 10x, 1x, and 0.1x to a cargo hold which is a lot easier to remember but still varied in a sensible way.

[Scandinavian]

If a research facility is anyway a whole multiple-location thing with off-site data centers, several laboratory wings and so on, it doesn't really make a lot of sense that it can't be built and shifted piecemeal. I get the argument that there might be economies of scale and a certain minimum size to get started, but that's also true for construction factories and their supply chains.

Infrastructure I would just measure in tons cargo space instead of points - in practice it is always deployed in large enough quantities that the discrete units don't matter, and there's no mechanic that requires us to "allocate" infrastructure point by point.

Keeping the Terraformer at 10 factories load weight makes sense to me, since that makes keeps it comparable to the orbital terraforming module. Spaceports also seem like they should be 10x, both for gameplay and fluff reasons. I could construct an argument either way for the GMC, depending on how you fluff it.

The GFCF is a middle case. It clearly includes all manner of manufacturing and even heavy industry, which it seems to me should operate on the same principles as the construction factories. But it also includes actual training facilities, which have to be large and are generally cumbersome to relocate (it takes a lot of space to do effective training maneuvers, especially once you get to division and corps level deployments - it's expensive too, but it is absolutely essential to maintain a good state of readiness).

[pwhk]

About facilities sizes. Actually I would prefer the size being displayed somewhere in the game proper. Possibly in fleet order screen where we can see how many facilities it will be able to move.
With that, then we don't need to refer to a picture outside the game and do mental calculations while still allowing differing facility sizes.

[Zincat]

About facilities sizes. Actually I would prefer the size being displayed somewhere in the game proper. Possibly in fleet order screen where we can see how many facilities it will be able to move.
With that, then we don't need to refer to a picture outside the game and do mental calculations while still allowing differing facility sizes.

This is such a great suggestion. Yes of course all veterans KNOW how big a facility is, and how many cargo spaces we need on our cargos due to that.
But.... having the size displayed in game would be SO helpful for a lot of people.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

About facilities sizes. Actually I would prefer the size being displayed somewhere in the game proper. Possibly in fleet order screen where we can see how many facilities it will be able to move.
With that, then we don't need to refer to a picture outside the game and do mental calculations while still allowing differing facility sizes.

This is such a great suggestion. Yes of course all veterans KNOW how big a facility is, and how many cargo spaces we need on our cargos due to that.
But.... having the size displayed in game would be SO helpful for a lot of people.

Added for v2.0.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=12523.msg158272#msg158272

[xenoscepter]

About facilities sizes. Actually I would prefer the size being displayed somewhere in the game proper. Possibly in fleet order screen where we can see how many facilities it will be able to move.
With that, then we don't need to refer to a picture outside the game and do mental calculations while still allowing differing facility sizes.

This is such a great suggestion. Yes of course all veterans KNOW how big a facility is, and how many cargo spaces we need on our cargos due to that.
But.... having the size displayed in game would be SO helpful for a lot of people.

Added for v2.0.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=12523.msg158272#msg158272

 --- Praise Sobek!

[Norm49]

I think that foe the new transport information instead of displaying the number of cargo hold needed for installation it should instead tell the size in tonne. It would help with because the game have different number of cargo hold.

[xenoscepter]

I think that foe the new transport information instead of displaying the number of cargo hold needed for installation it should instead tell the size in tonne. It would help with because the game have different number of cargo hold.

 --- Or use "Standard Cargo Holds" instead. It works ok as presented, IMO, but yeah tonnage would be nice.

[Norm49]

It would work for my cargo and my freighter but most of my cargo ship are using the small cargo hold.
Mistral class: 5'000 tonnes of cargo capacity (I have 10 of dose) Mostly for inta system (i don't like the mass driver idea so i don't use them)
Mercury class:25'000 tonnes of cargo capacity (I have 2 of dose) Mostly for inter stellar transport mineral. Also carry salvage and some time mine and infrastructure.
Mammoth class: 125'000 tonnes of cargo capacity (I have 6 of dose) To move big stuff lab/spaceport/refuelling station
Class name TBD in concept station with big cargo to be use when my tug are ideling and most of the time it is not the case. The often have years of work waiting to be done.