I've recently discovered Aurora and I love it so far, although I'm still in full confused as hell mode. However, thanks to the Tutorials and a heathly dose of experimentation I'm steadly (I think) getting more in tune without how to play the game. My problem I'm looking at now is there are a few details still left over I've been unable to track down details for.
1) Is it normal to have Earth start with 0 Infrastructure and say it doesn't need any?
2) I've only reached a few months in of game time to so far in my experimentation, so it could just be lack of any data, but when I hit the Planetary Market button I never get anything (not even a blank window pop up). Normal?
3) Is there any reason to always use maximum strength sensors? For example, say you need to cover (and I haven't got the math down off the top of my head, so I'm pulling numbers out of a hat here) 200,000km of space for targeting with a weapon, which can be covered with say a S20-R1 Sensor. If you can support S24 sensors, is there any reason to specifically pay the extra for S24 instead of S20? I know its probably a stupid question, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything with something so important.
4) Is there a breakdown of what the buildings do? Most everything else I've seen has a description (and these might as well, I'm just not seeing it) which I can build off of, but a few of the buildings aren't completely self-explanatory as to their full affect (like a factory is). Mainly I'm mixed up on the Financial Center, Military Academy, and Mass Driver. I have a vague understanding that the Mass Driver allows me to send minerals from the current planet to another, right? Is that all? And the Military Academy is for training ship crews I believe. I have no idea about the Financial Center other than guesses derived from its name.
5) Finally, (I think) the Tutorial game file that was there when I first started the game up had a PDC as follows:
Resolution class Planetary Defence Centre 38700 tons 88 Crew 437 BP TCS 774 TH 0 EM 0
Armour 5-101 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control 1 PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 3305% IFR: 45.9% Maintenance Capacity 0 MSP
Troop Capacity: 15 Battalions
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres Range 0.0 billion km (0 days at full power)
This ship is classed as a Planetary Defence Centre
What is the point of that? Is it just to act as a bunker, shielding from orbital attacks, for 15 Battalions if they're loaded into it?
In order:
1. Yes it is normal, and there is no problem with that. Infrastructure is only needed on planets that have a colony cost of > 0.0. Earth is a 0.0 world, at least for your race, so it doesn't need infrastructure to make it livable. Look on the system display screen and you will see worlds (like possibly venus and mars, depending) with colony costs. The higher the colony cost, the more infrastructure it will take to make it livable.
2. The planetary market is a relatively new inclusion in Aurora, and I'm not very familiar with it.
3. If I understand your question, then the answer is no, you don't HAVE to use the most powerful sensors. However, there generally is very little reason not to, as a more powerful sensor can be smaller and acheive the same capability of a larger, lower power sensor. For example, say you have sensor power 8 and 10 available (just off the top of my head). A ten space sensor using the 8 power tech would have a total strength of 80, where an eight space sensor using the 10 power tech would have the same power, but at a lower space cost.
4. You are pretty close. A mass driver allows you to send or receive minerals to and from colonies in the same system. One mass driver will allow you to send 5,000 tons of resources per year, and will receive an unlimited amount. A military academy has two functions. It produces officers for your officer corps and trained crews for your ships. If no crew members are available at the time the ship is launched, the ship will have a grade penalty. The financial center adds to your wealth production. I forget the exact formula, though. There is probably an explanation somewhere in the tutorials.
5. Yes, that is exactly what that PDC is. PDC's are hard to detect, even from orbital range, and one that does nothing but harbor troops is even more difficult to find.
Kurt