Aurora - the 4X dwarf fortress

[GarfunkeL]

Thanks to Destroid for pointing this out to me and also ensuring that I won't have any free time to do anything else in the near future.

Here's the wiki:
http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.ph ... =Main_Page

Here's the forums:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php

Here's download links for the actual game and installation guide:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/board,10.0.html

Yes, it's basically Dwarf Fortress as a 4X. Lot of spread sheets and a rudimentary 2D map. Version 5.42 is the latest. It works, though bit funky and the amount of detail in it is staggering. It's addictive as hell. I haven't read any AARs or anything since I don't want to be spoiled about the alien civilizations and so on. Anyway, just ship design is awesome, with so many options available. On top of that you have a robust research system, HoI3-style officer management mini-game, economy and industry to worry abut and zillion other little things.

I've played 37 years in-game now and my nascent civilization has reached the stage of asteroid mining and Mars terraforming. In a year or two I'll have my Gravitational Survey Ships ready to search for jump point so I can start expanding beyond the solar system. Mass drivers on Mars, Mercury, Venus and Luna deliver mineral packets back to Earth for processing, as the cradle of humanity is being drained. My four geological survey ships, "Leif Ericsson", "Thor Heyerdahl", "Henry Hudson" and "Yuri Gagarin" have explored all the asteroids, planets, moons and comets in our solar system, except for that pesky one with such an ellipsical orbit that it's really hard to catch it while it's not too far away. I almost lost "Thor Heyerdahl" as its poor captain miscalculated fuel usage and ran out of fuel just beyond Mars orbit, but "Henry Hudson" was sent to the rescue: the two ships docked fuel lines and "Henry Hudson" gave half of her fuel to her sister ship, so they could journey back home together. Cargo freighters have ferried infrastructure and terraforming plants to Mars and the Red Planet is soon ready for a limited colonization effort.

Okay, enough of a rant - the game needs to be experienced to be believed. Do give it a try. If you hate micromanagement and DF is an anathema to you, don't bother.

 

[TripJack]

looks complex as fuck

thanks

 

[CrimsonAngel]

Downloading now.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

This sounds boner inducing. I've never played DF, but spreadsheets don't tend to scare me much.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Just the new game screen is giving me a hard on. I don't know if I'm going to sleep tonight. Fuck you, Garfuckle.

 

[Grunker]

Downloading.

 

[Deakul]

Too casual for me.

 

[DakaSha]

Ive known about this for a long as time but got stuck in some shitty circle namely:
'The complexity and speadsheet look is fine if the gameplay is fun ---> Ok see if the gameplay is good ---> Complexity and spreadsheet look put me off from learning how to play it ---> Well fuck'

My main thing is whether the AI is decent (or is it designed in such a way that AI doesnt have to be decent.. as in the computer doesnt play by the same rules (which is fine with me if done right)).

So let me know how it plays when u get in a little deeper. If it stays fun then ill actually try to learn how to play it, It does certainly interest me

 

[circ]

Thread hijack.
Has anyone tried the Wasteland mod for DF? I couldn't get it to work just gave me regular DF and I lost interest.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

I'm confused!

 

[baronjohn]

I wanna play this, but just looking around I get lots of database errors.

 

[Trash]

Thanks to Destroid for pointing this out to me and also ensuring that I won't have any free time to do anything else in the near future.

Here's the wiki:
http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.ph ... =Main_Page

Here's the forums:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php

Here's download links for the actual game and installation guide:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/board,10.0.html

Yes, it's basically Dwarf Fortress as a 4X. Lot of spread sheets and a rudimentary 2D map. Version 5.42 is the latest. It works, though bit funky and the amount of detail in it is staggering. It's addictive as hell. I haven't read any AARs or anything since I don't want to be spoiled about the alien civilizations and so on. Anyway, just ship design is awesome, with so many options available. On top of that you have a robust research system, HoI3-style officer management mini-game, economy and industry to worry abut and zillion other little things.

I've played 37 years in-game now and my nascent civilization has reached the stage of asteroid mining and Mars terraforming. In a year or two I'll have my Gravitational Survey Ships ready to search for jump point so I can start expanding beyond the solar system. Mass drivers on Mars, Mercury, Venus and Luna deliver mineral packets back to Earth for processing, as the cradle of humanity is being drained. My four geological survey ships, "Leif Ericsson", "Thor Heyerdahl", "Henry Hudson" and "Yuri Gagarin" have explored all the asteroids, planets, moons and comets in our solar system, except for that pesky one with such an ellipsical orbit that it's really hard to catch it while it's not too far away. I almost lost "Thor Heyerdahl" as its poor captain miscalculated fuel usage and ran out of fuel just beyond Mars orbit, but "Henry Hudson" was sent to the rescue: the two ships docked fuel lines and "Henry Hudson" gave half of her fuel to her sister ship, so they could journey back home together. Cargo freighters have ferried infrastructure and terraforming plants to Mars and the Red Planet is soon ready for a limited colonization effort.

Okay, enough of a rant - the game needs to be experienced to be believed. Do give it a try. If you have micromanagement and DF is an anathema to you, don't bother.

Heard about it before. Something of a wet dream for sf nerds and anal retentive aspers, right? Seriously though, looks awesome. I'm sure I'll drown in the micromanagement and interface though.

 

[DakaSha]

HOW THE FUCK DO I ASSIGN A FAGGOT TO A GOVERNMENT POSITION

I swear if i cant see a fuckign button do to having a resolution of 1440x900 Im going to rage so hard.

edit: omfg http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=Leaders

I cant fucking play it because i 'only' have a resolution of 1440x900. You have GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. wtf is this shit.. next gen windows forms game
Can i seriously not even resize the window?



...

 

[Zed]

http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.ph ... _Beginners
:D

 

[DakaSha]

uhm.. try that on 900 Y resolution. or am i missing something. it even says u need a 1280x1000 resolution to play. its seriously one of the most braindead things ive come across in a game

Lets make a game that can run on all computers.. except it wont run on even a modern laptop (if im not just missing something that is.. still looking)

 

[DakaSha]

hah found an option 'reduced height windows'... saved me from nerd raging his forum ^^
dont see why the option wouldnt be default though ^^

edit: are personality traits just flavor? why can i add remove them

 

[Destroid]

So aside from all the rage, is it fun?

 

[DakaSha]

i personally havent done anything but search for a button for an hour :-/

 

[Grunker]

Too much micro for me. EU3 is fun, but this is a little over the top for my tastes. I'm sure some will find it amazing though.

Also, I'm not sure the comparison to Dwarf Fortress is accurate.

 

[MetalCraze]

Does it have a mouse support?

Because if it does I won't play it as mouse is for consoletards

 

[Heresiarch]

Does it have a mouse support?

Because if it does I won't play it as mouse is for consoletards

I had a dream
You could play Dwarf Fortress with normal visual presentation and mouse support
Like humans

men ur so kool

 

[GarfunkeL]

It has mouse support. I think it's somewhere between Hoi3 and DF in complexity - though I haven't seen everything the game has to offer. I'm happy enough just growing my civilization at the moment. I'll keep you guys updated.

Something of a wet dream for sf nerds and anal retentive aspers, right?

Yeah, definitely.

 

[MetalCraze]

HoI3 is complex enough. Are you saying the combat has as many calculations going for it as in HoI3?

 

[saenz]

You wanna get into Aurora and not feel like you just wasted tens of hours? Goodluck.

Okay, first off, be warned that Aurora is very much along the lines of the "Losing is fun" genre. Unless you set up the galaxy right, you will lkely play for tens of hours before encountering any opposition.

More likely though, you'll quit out of frustration once combat actually occurs.

Aurora operates on a variable turn timer. A turn may equal one minute, one hour, one day... The reasoning for this is that unlike every other 4X, 'combat turns' and 'standard turns' are the same damn thing. This is cool when you're in combat, but is an utter suckfest when it's somebody else. Furthermore, a big feature of the game is no omniscence. So you'll be chugging out R&D, and then all off your turns start cutting down to one second at a time. You'll end up clicking "next turm" a few hundred times with no feedback as to what the hell is going on.

What's actually happening is that the AI's are battling it out... somewhere.

If you're lucky (or set your galaxy up right,) you might actually see combat yourself. When you do, you'll realize just how ill-prepared you are for war, and that all of your designs are tragically flawed. PRO TIP: Build almost exclusively missiles, and anti-missiles.

To summarize, there's some great potential in Aurora (the whole civilian economy and freight liners are the most revolutionary concept seen in a 4X in the last ten years) but you'll end up hating yourself on fighting a vertical learning curve on a game with a glacial pace and prone to catastrophic failures or unexpected dead-ends (mineral resources are finite for example.) Give it a shot by all means, but be ready to call it quits within a month.

 

[Malakal]

Tried it. Uh. Some graphics would be nice, sprites or something. It feels like "playing" excel.

Seems alright if you have time and determination to get into this.