These types of posts come up from time to time, and don't get me wrong — I would love a simpler, yet still deep, aircraft model that could work with AA in an entire ground setting.

Unfortunately, many fail to understand or remember that Steve spent a considerable amount of time and effort developing the current mechanics. I don't think he would simply scrap it, especially since we’re talking about removing a significant chunk of code and quite a few techs from the tree. Unless, of course, we’d prefer having the two systems working together, but to be honest, I don't see much value in that.

Soon, we will likely see the usual posts highlighting that you can now create a unit from the bombardment series, name it a bomber, and it will function as such since ground units are just a concept and can be used or imagined in any way you see fit.

This is something I have never responded to, and frankly, I find it ludicrous because it disregards the entire AA system and the concept of limiting units to engage only specific types of units (in this case, air units).

Beyond the effort Steve has already put in, I have developed my own theory over the years: Steve may view limited engagements as an exploitable rock-paper-scissors situation, where a player could deploy thousands of air units, effectively nullifying the entire ground unit concept and mechanics, or finding other exploits within such mechanics. This mindset has led to numerous changes from VB6 to C# (notably PDC) that had, or still have, similar implications.

I think the fundamental underlying issue with ground support fighters as fighters is that there's a level of necessary micromanagement if you want to use them in support roles (necessitated by the fact that they're individual ships rather than whole formations), and that it's far easier to spam vast amounts of AA than it is an equivalent amount of fighters to contend with all that AA. Plus the fact that you can't even make use of ground support fighters as a defender because your fighters, though immune to fire from space when in a ground support role, will eventually need to stop being in that role to resupply in which case they're vulnerable to fire from space. It also just doesn't really align with the regular gameplay of ground forces being much more of a "set and forget" sort of thing without too much in the way of bespoke customization per unit (every other ground unit has a small selection of components to work with and little else, after all).

I just don't see a way forward with ground support fighters. Steve seems to at least recognize the problem since he has mentioned a coming rework to the point where he didn't even bother, when giving NPRs fighters, to have them use fighters in any sort of ground support role, saying that this was because that was all going to be reworked anyway. Given that a few of their mechanics were never actually implemented in the first place (combat air patrol, to my understanding, is nonfunctional), my guess is that Steve also ran into limitations with their current implementation and might not be as attached to keeping them around as you think.

Ground combat is just too big to be caring about individual units.

I was wondering if anyone knew how the max stars in the new game settings work with NPR's, the new system Steve put in place for advanced multi system NPRS and in general.

Lets say i want a death match style game with a max of 25 stars. 

Is the game limited to 25 stars or will it create additional stars beyond that limit to make room for NPRs?

Lets say in that 25 max stars game, i add 2 advanced NPRs with multi systems, is that taken in account for the max or how will that work?

If I am not mistaken, that is not a hard cap but a number after which new systems won't generate new connections. This means that if you are at 24 and surveying 2 systems that have been previously discovered these will have connections to other systems, however, as soon as you jump in the new system hitting your 25 limit, then that system and any other system discovered after that will not have any connection. Long story short, you may end up exactly at 25, or even 50 for that matter.

Does real stars vs generated stars really matter in a star limit due to distances?

Garfunkel replied to this for you.

I was wondering if anyone knew how the max stars in the new game settings work with NPR's, the new system Steve put in place for advanced multi system NPRS and in general.

Lets say i want a death match style game with a max of 25 stars. 

Is the game limited to 25 stars or will it create additional stars beyond that limit to make room for NPRs?
Does real stars vs generated stars really matter in a star limit due to distances?

Lets say in that 25 max stars game, i add 2 advanced NPRs with multi systems, is that taken in account for the max or how will that work?

Hello all,

im new to this game, and im trying to figure out how to reassign a scientist or recruit one to a category

To change research field of the scientist, go to Commanders window and select scientist you want to change. Then on the bottom bar there is Change Field button (research bonus of the scientist will be lowered by 75%). New window will open where you can select new field for the scientist.

New scientists are recruited from Military Academies (you can construct them with industry. Then you can select academy commander. If the commander is scientist, there is higher chance to generate scientists from the academy. To select academy commander, go to Commanders window and select scientist, the in lower right part of the window there is field named Academy Commandant, under it is list of your academies. Select the academy and then click Assign button on the bottom bar.

Post from Steve about Academy Commandants: https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg104092#msg104092

We are playing a game in which Newtonian physics is obsolete. Aircrafts use the same tech every ship and its shuttles use. Some kind of antigravity magic. So, any air unit can be a subject to the same modifiers that ground units are.

I remember someone proposing in great detail implementation of air units, completely implemented in to existing ground combat mechanics. With different aircraft sizes, weapon stats and roles on the field. I tried to look for that post many times, but failed to find it. There is another one posted I thing in April of this year, but that is not the one I remember.

Exactly. I'm trying to make as few assumptions as possible while still keeping the "spirit" of what an aircraft is. As for why I didn't want to include particular "missions" and whatnot with my suggestion, it's simple: I didn't want it to lead to micromanaging ground forces. They should be set-and-forget, and this system allows for exactly that.

This system also lends itself well to working with existing systems.