v2.6.0 Changes List

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Boat Bay Update

The Boat Bay has been renamed 'Hangar Bay - Small'. The Small Boat Bay has been renamed 'Hangar Bay - Tiny'. Both will be researched automatically when the Hangar Bay is researched.

The nomenclature is a 20-year old holdover from Starfire and it could be confusing for new players that two components that did the same thing had different names.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Ramming Update

I've recently discovered that ramming doesn't work in Aurora. Or rather, it does work but no damage was being registered:)

While I was fixing the bug, I did a general tidy up for ramming. The updated ramming rules are as follows:

• Currently, only AI races will ram. Even in this case, it is limited to certain spoilers, or AI ships that decide to take drastic action, with the chance based on determination, xenophobia and combat effectiveness.
• The chance of a successful ram is equal to (Ramming Ship Speed / Target Ship Speed) * 5. For example, a ship that is twice as fast as the target has a 10% chance to ram.
• The base damage for ramming is equal to the size of a ship in tons / 50. For example, a 5000-ton ship will inflict 100 points of damage.
• The ramming ship will take base damage based on the size of the target. For example, a ship ramming a 10,000 ton enemy ship will suffer 200 points of self-inflicted damage.
• The base damage is increased by 10% for every 1000 km/s speed advantage of the ramming ship. For example, a ramming ship with a 10,000 km speed advantage will inflict double damage on both the target and itself. There is no penalty to damage if the ramming ship is slower.
• Only one ramming attempt may be made per increment.

I may add player ramming in future, but it will have to be implemented carefully. Unlimited ramming would likely result in large ships with nothing but shields and boosted engines zipping around the system trying to ram everything. Currently I am thinking along the lines of implementing something similar to the AI, where player officers have some form of hidden 'self-sacrifice' attribute, modified by racial xenophobia. When heavily outnumbered and 'in trouble' (TBD), they may override player instructions and attempt to ram the nearest hostile ship. Another option is some form of overall Empire 'self-sacrifice' attribute, which makes ramming available more generally after the race has suffered significant military losses or high civilian casualties. The aim is to make ramming a tactical or strategic desperation measure, rather than a planned tactic for which ships are designed from the keel up (in which case they would probably have a large warhead as well).

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Missile To-Hit Summary

The missile summary displayed on both the Missile Design window and the Class Design window has been updated. Currently, it displays the chance to hit against targets with speed of 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s.

For v2.6, it will show the target speed at which the missile has a 100%, 50% and 25% chance to hit.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Updated POW Mechanics

(Thanks to everyone who posted in the POW thread - that helped a lot)

For v2.6, when you rescue a life pod from one of your own ships, any crew will immediately go into the academy pool (with appropriate adjustment for grade) and any officers become immediately available.

When you rescue life pods from other races, there is no longer an immediate interrogation. Instead, the prisoners remain on board until dropped off at a colony with an Imperial Population of at least 1m or transferred to another ship using a new 'Transfer Prisoners' order. The ‘Unload Survivors’ order has been renamed to ‘Unload Prisoners’. Prisoners will include both enlisted personnel and officers and the latter will be listed separately, including their rank level, on board ships and at populations.

When prisoners are at a colony with an Imperial Population of at least 1m and a naval headquarters, and you have established communication with the prisoner race, they will be interrogated. The enlisted prisoners are ‘processed’ at the rate of 5000 per year per naval headquarters. So a colony with four naval headquarters could process 20,000 per year. Each processed enlisted prisoner generates 0.1 intelligence points, which are combined with ELINT intelligence points for the same race. As in v2.5.1, when the intelligence points for a specific alien race reach 100, an intelligence event is generated and the total is reduced by 100. The total enlisted prisoners for each alien race at a colony are listed separately, along with the percentage that have been processed.

Officer prisoners are treated differently. All officers at a suitable colony are interrogated simultaneously, but it may take some time for them to give up useful intelligence. The percentage chance of ‘processing’ a given officer in any given increment is equal to:

Number of Naval Headquarters * 200 * (Increment Length / Year) * Interrogation Modifier.

So assuming the Interrogation Modifier is 1, the chance of successful interrogation during a 5-day increment on a planet with a single naval headquarters is about 2.75%. On a planet with four naval headquarters over the course of a month, the chance is about 50%. Note this is not simulating getting someone to talk, but rather extracting useful intelligence from that discussion.

The Interrogation Modifier is equal to (Determination + Xenophobia) / (50.0 * Rank Level)
For example, a prisoner of rank level 2 (one above the lowest rank for that race), with determination and xenophobia of 50 each, will have a modifier of 1. Higher rank or higher determination and xenophobia will make the prisoner harder to break down and vice versa.

An officer that is ‘processed’ will generate a base intelligence level equal to (Rank Level + 1)^3. For example, the lowest ranked officer of an alien race will have a base intelligence level of 8. Level 2 officers will have a base intelligence level of 27, level 3 will have 64 and level 4 will have 125. Once that is determined, there will be two random rolls based on a range from 1 to the base intelligence level, which are added together to generate intelligence points. For example, a L2 officer will generate two rolls from 1 to 27 and the results added together will be the resulting number of intelligence points.

It is possible for a L3 officer, and likely for a L4 officer, to generate an intelligence event based on solely on their interrogation. If senior officers are captured, it may be worth transporting them to colonies with multiple naval headquarters if timely intel is required.

Non-hostile ‘prisoners’ may also be interrogated, although the value of intelligence provided is lower because the amount of persuasion involved will be correspondingly lower. Prisoners from neutral races provide 50% of normal intelligence points, friendly provide 20% and allied 10%.

Captured officers and crew will be freed if held at a planet that is subsequently liberated, or on board a ship that is captured. When a ship surrenders, its crew and any officers on board will become prisoners on their own ship.

A new tab on the Economics window shows either the prisoners at the current pop, or all prisoners in the Empire. For each officer prisoner or group of enlisted, the tab shows their current location (population or ship), number of naval headquarters (for populations), system, name and rank (including rank level) for officers or number of enlisted and the processing status.

I will add a picture here of the tab in the future, as at the moment it would have spoilers for my current campaign.

Hostile prisoners may be executed, or spaced depending on their current location, using a button on the new POW tab. Non-hostile prisoners may be released instead. Releasing non-hostile prisoners immediately removes them from their ship or population location and will generate a diplomatic boost (from the perspective of the prisoner race) equal to 10% of their intelligence point value. This diplomacy boost will be reduced by 75% if they have already been processed.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Scrap All Components

The Stockpile tab of the Economics windows now has a Scrap All button.

This will scrap all components in the stockpile, with the usual wealth and mineral refunds, except for those components that are researched and not obsolete, or those that can be disassembled.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Scrap Components in Cargo Hold

Any fleet that contains a ship with a salvage module can scrap any ship components in the hold of any ship in the fleet.

After selecting a fleet and navigating to the Transported Items tab, there are two options.

• Select a specific component type and scrap only that.
• Scrap all components, except for those that can be disassembled and those that are researched, non-obsolete components.

The component list for the fleet also shows the same colours as for the population component list, covered in this post:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=13463.msg171610#msg171610

For example, here is the screen before and after using 'Scrap All'. The three components that remain are all researched and have not been marked as obsolete.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Multi-System Starting NPRs

Three new parameters appear on the New Game window: NPR Base Explored Transits, NPR Random Explored Transits and NPR Max Start Systems. All three default to zero.

After the normal NPR creation process is complete, the NPR will generate a number based on the 'NPR Base Explored Transits' plus a random value from the 'NPR Random Explored Transits'. This is known as the Empire Radius. For example, if the Base is 2 and the Random is 4, the NPR will generate an Empire Radius between 3 and 6. If the numbers are not set, the Empire Radius will default to 0.

If Empire Radius is 1 or greater, the NPR will start with its home system already surveyed and will explore its home system jump points. If the number is 2 or more, the newly discovered systems will be automatically surveyed and a new round of jump point explorations will happen. This expansion will be repeated a number of times equal to the Empire Radius. During the last expansion, the new systems will be geo surveyed but not grav surveyed. For example, if the Empire Radius is 5, the NPR will explore five transits out from its home system, with all systems undergoing a full geological survey and all but the outer ring of systems undergoing a full gravitational survey.

If Max Start Systems is set above zero, the process of exploring new systems will halt as soon as that number of systems is reached or the full Empire Radius is explored, whichever happens first. This may leave some systems with known, but unexplored jump points.

During this process of automated expansion, jump points may be linked to existing systems generated earlier in the process by the NPR, but they will never link to an existing system generated by the player race, or a different NPR.

Once all the new systems are generated, the NPR will determine the best sites for both automated mines and populated colonies. This is primarily based on a mining score, modified by colony cost, but will also include sites within strategic locations, such as systems with many jump points. The NPR will conduct terraforming, prioritising the best sites first, with a maximum amount equal to 50 years of production from its starting terraforming fleets.

Automated mines will be assigned to those colonies that lie outside gravitational tolerance, with the better sites receiving more mines. The max amount of automated mines for all colonies is equal to the total number of automated mines at the home world, although they are additional installations.

Populated colonies will be established for those sites that have an acceptable mining score and a low colony cost, or less than colony cost 4 but with a very high mining score. These will be created in order of descending score, with the population size based on the mining score and the distance from the home system, with a limitation on total population for all colonies, based on the home world population.

All mining colonies will be assigned mines and tracking stations based on the population (relative to the number of mines vs pop on the home world). Different categories of population size may also be assigned construction factories, various logistics installations, a naval headquarters, financial centres, maintenance facilities (with production enabled if suitable minerals are present), ordnance factories (if Gallicite, Boronide, Corbomite and Tritanium are present) and fuel refineries (with Sorium). Those colonies used for chokepoint systems will generally have logistics installations and financial centres.

Depending on the importance of each colony, it will be assigned naval and ground forces. These are in addition to the home world forces. Where a colony has naval forces, it will also start with fuel, maintenance and ordnance stockpiles. One additional harvester fleet and one additional terraforming fleet will be added to the normal starting forces and assigned to suitable locations. Additional shipping lines equal to Empire Radius / 2 will be created.

This option allows the player to face one or more well-developed NPRs, rather than the NPRs starting with a single system at the same time as the player.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Post-Start Multi-System NPRs

If either of the 'NPR Base Explored Transits' or 'NPR Random Explored Transits' game parameters is set to greater than zero, any non-Minor NPRs generated during the game will be multi-system.

If a jump point exploration leads to the discovery of an NPR home world, no link between the two systems is created. Instead, the NPR is generated using the same rules as the Multi-System Starting NPRs (see post above):
https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=13463.msg172018#msg172018

Once the new NPR Empire has been created, the system from which the exploration took place is linked to one of the systems generated by the NPR during its last round of jump point explorations. If none exist (because all the jump point explorations led to existing NPR systems), the systems generated during the penultimate round will be checked. This will continue inward until at least one qualifying system is found. The qualifying systems are ordered by distance from the exploration system (by real space distance in Known Space games and system numbers otherwise) then checked in order, with a one third chance to select each system for the link. This check will continue to loop through the qualifying systems until one is selected.

Once the link is made, the game will continue as normal, with the exploring player seeing only the linked system, rather than the new NPR home system.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Empire Radius for Customised NPRs

The setup window for customised NPRs has its own values for Base Explored Transits, Random Explored Transits and Maximum Systems. During game creation, these will override the game-level settings with the settings for each specific, customised NPR.

This will allow the player to have some multi-system starting NPRs, but not all, or to control which starting NPRs have larger Empires. For example, if playing a Babylon 5 theme game, you may want major and minor races, with some minor races being multi-system and others single system, while having larger empires for the major races.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

NPR Fighters and Carriers

For v2.6, NPRs and Precursors may sometimes deploy carriers and fighters. These can be both missile and energy-armed, with carrier designs appropriate for the type of fighter.

The fighters may be launched against targets within their operational range and will return to their carriers when in need of ordnance, fuel or repairs. If the carriers are damaged or destroyed, the fighters may relocate to a population that can support them.

I was considering not mentioning this, but given it is a complex addition - as it requires both new AI code and integration with the existing code - I think it is better for players to be aware so they can report any odd behaviour.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Carriers for Customised NPRs

Three new dropdowns have been added to the Customised NPR window, each one with options for Random, Yes and No. If Random is chosen for any option, the game will follow the normal random generation rules for that option.

• Use Carriers.
• Carriers are Hybrids
• Balanced Fleet

Use Carriers is the basic 'on switch' for an NPR to include carrier forces in their fleets. If the race is a missile user, the carriers will generally be equipped with magazines and the fighters with box launchers, although it is possible for a minority of carriers to be without magazines and carrying energy-armed fighters.

Races that use energy-armed ships as their primary combatants will only use carriers without magazines that carry energy-armed fighters. Hybrid carriers are an option for these races, in which case the race will replace any carriers with hybrids, which have both offensive weaponry and hangar bays.

If the balanced option is chosen, the NPR will replace some of their major fleet formation with carrier groups (missile or energy or hybrid as appropriate) and some will be focused on 'normal' capital ships instead. Without the balanced option, all major offensive fleet formations will be carrier groups, although the race will still retain smaller warship groups, or jump defence forces.

If customised NPRs are not being used, the normal NPR generation will use a random chance for carriers, hybrids and balanced fleets.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Chat GPT Naming Themes

I've added some ship name, system name and commander name themes that I generated using ChatGPT. I've found it to be very useful for generating theme-based names when you run out of ideas

There are 24 ship names based on Babylon 5 and Star Trek races, with between 60 and 100 names per theme. I'll attach some examples.

The 13 system name themes and 11 commander name themes, all for Babylon 5 races, are a similar size. They are more  generic, but suitably 'alien-sounding'

Here are four example ship name themes.

http://www.pentarch.org/steve/NameFiles/GPT Ships - Shadows.txt

http://www.pentarch.org/steve/NameFiles/GPT Ships - Centauri.txt

http://www.pentarch.org/steve/NameFiles/GPT Ships - Narn.txt

http://www.pentarch.org/steve/NameFiles/GPT Ships - Drazi.txt

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Larger Parasites

I've added a 'Larger Parasites' checkbox to the Class Design window. If this is clicked, the potential parasite list will include any class design small enough to fit in the hangar bay of the currently selected class. These can be added to the strikegroup if desired.

Fighters and FAC designs will always be displayed in the list, regardless of which class is selected.