Aurora - the 4X dwarf fortress

[Ashery]

If you're going for beam fighters, I consider the +50% power, -100% efficiency to be a requirement.

Haven't been playing much as of late, though, so I've yet to see how well my setup works in action.

 

[Destroid]

It's a shame the laser shrinking is so bad, if it had anything like as potent as box launchers I'm sure beam fighters would be more viable. If they made the generators a larger portion of beam weapon mass it might be useful, but not as it is (until very high tech capacitor tech).

 

[eklektyk]

You'll have to post your sensors exact properties for us to know if they are suitable to detect the swarm.

on basic sensors are all the same as in my Delta only jump ship got few larger but same resolution

and about swarm - I know they use mesons as ive took one system from them already but there i saw them for days before closing for engagement thanks to range on my sensors

so stil it is a mystary

curently workin on 3000t stealth ship with a 97% reduction or so and dedicated sensors em and thermal to scout this system and see what is there

[still few years before i start production so for now scouting was halted in 2 chains and redirected to other side of my Empire and btw fuck black holes : 9 Jump Points ??? so close to my capital? how the fuck am i to defend this shit? ]

 

[Ashery]

It doesn't matter how many jump points you *think* are near your main system thanks to dormant jump points

 

[eklektyk]

It doesn't matter how many jump points you *think* are near your main system thanks to dormant jump points

i live in dred of that

 

[Destroid]

That's some fancy stealth tech you got there, what year are you in?

 

[eklektyk]

That's some fancy stealth tech you got there, what year are you in?

2052 from starting 2000 but i went crazy with academies and got some good rols with scientists and since then they developed quite nicely[35-55 bonuses] plus some 30 odd years almost all pumped in research and asteroid survey and mining

ps mystery solved: some kind of bug switching all sensors off in whole task force - lost whole missile salvo just now because of that had to manualy switch them back on and launch another one - and found 3rd point of contact with my enemy alien race just where i thought was safe

 

[eklektyk]

been 'splorin lately, killin some aliens [prob precursors - coz sometimes after conquering outpost they gave mi some ships - elusive bug] and killed second swarm and was feeling smug and all that shit and then...

thermal contact : strenght 16000

then estimated tonnage 200 000

few moment later It deatached 4 60000 mofos

at that point i packed my bags and GTFO from that system ...


now im wondering if my lunch capability in throwed missile salwo from combined fleet are enough to take them down ... hm ...

 

[Ashery]

For those that don't keep up on the site, 5.53 was released last night and it fixes the commercial shipyard bug.

@eklektyk

Engage'em. What's the worst that could happen?

 

[eklektyk]

For those that don't keep up on the site, 5.53 was released last night and it fixes the commercial shipyard bug.

@eklektyk

Engage'em. What's the worst that could happen?

my first three warfleets could tell U what will happen

ps. before stumbling on this swarm i;ve cleared one system from precursors so my missles are like 30-40% stock magazine - wont even scratch paint on them

 

[Cassidy]

I think I already drained all the fun this game had to offer. Wish it would have a dynamic turn mode where the game skipped a huge swath of time at once and only stopped at the first time something that truly required player input happened. To me this was like those bad Goldbox games with complex character systems, where the creation part(ship/unit designs) was more fun than the rest of the game on overall.

The combination of taking too long before shit happens and too unforgiving once shit happens, while forcing ironman and being poor performance-wise doesn't work well to make of it a long-term interest.

Also, after creating a NPR in Sol for a custom made scenario(the one with Gaddafi, more exactly), I realized how much the AI in this game cheats, as they were churning new warships in a totally unbelievable rate.

I can only hope that in the next decade, the Aurora 2 that will be coded in the more flexible C++(or C#, I can't remember the author's notes about his new project) will be quite less clumsy and have a turn system that skips the boring waiting, and that doesn't force you to skip a ton of 5 second long turns every time AIs are battling each other either. At least the minimum screen size issue will definitively be sorted out.

In fact, although it might seem a bit of a finger to the existing fans, starting this new project and keeping only a minimal focus on the existing game, centered on bug fixing, might be a better idea overall, even if only because of the clumsiness of BASIC for a project of such scope.

Of course he could already be doing just that since he announced Aurora 2 but decided to not make it explicit.

 

[Destroid]

I'm inclined to agree Cassidy. Designing ships is the part in this game where I've had the most fun, and the very long processing time for turns is quite annoying.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Luckily I have two laptops - one is running Aurora while I'm using the other to surf/play etc. That helps a lot.

 

[Destroid]

Speaking of, your LP hasn't had updates in a while.

 

[Ashery]

Oh god, the combination of the tedious mid-game and the NPR combat I'm not involved with is going to drive me mad soon. Nothing like passing a couple months in 2-10 hour long turns where all I was doing on the input side was giving the occasional civilian contract to move mines and assigning the occasional new research lab.

I can deal with the couple of minutes I have to wait at the end of the five day build cycle, but, gah, those damn two hour turns!

The bitch of it is that it'll be nearly five years before I complete my next generation military vessel research. But once I do

 

[tindrli]

I think im dumb... just cant visualise this game.. maybe i just need to calm down

 

[eklektyk]

Speaking of, your LP hasn't had updates in a while.

in other news: was chillin out and cleaning stuffies after small romp with precursors[8 wrecks and 3 outpost to capture] when sudenly Swarm from next door decided to crash my little salvage party

3 x 60 000 bases with standard 3 x 20 meson FACs

it was interesting for a moment there[no missile restock after precursors] but AI split forces [2 + 1] and made it easier[now i have shiny new 11 swarm soldiers to take home ]

another day in the office...

 

[GarfunkeL]

5.70 Aurora is coming!

Goodies include new, re-vamped Sol system:

I've updated the Sol system, adding the dwarf planets and correcting the density, gravity, mass and escape velocity for all the major moons.

The new dwarf planets added are Ceres, Eris, Haumea, Makemake, Orcus, Quaoar and Sedna. As they have such long orbital periods I have used their current distance from the Sun rather than their average distance. Pluto is also now classed as a dwarf planet. Those planets and any planets that used to be listed as "Chunks" will now be listed as dwarf planets in the F9 view. I considered adding the moons for the new dwarf planets but the data on them is extremely limited so I haven't for the moment. I'll probably come back and tackle that at some point though.

There were some significant mistakes in the physical data for many of the existing moons. In fact, some were so wrong I can't imagine where I got the original information. I have used the Wikipaedia entry for each moon to source the updated information. This will result in some changes in terms of possible colonization as Titan's gravity has dropped considerably.

o make life a little more interesting, I am going to widen the range of racial gravity tolerances possible for a new race. A random race will have from 50% to 90%. Humans will start with 90%, which makes the Moon, Titan and the Galilean moons all possible colony sites and will widen human options in other systems. I've also halved the "Genome Sequence: Base Gravity" research costs.

In the past the mean surface temperature of the Earth in Aurora has been 22C. I've now changed it to the correct value of 14C. I've also increased the base human temperature range from 22C to 24C, giving a range of -10C to 38C, which seems reasonable in terms of the environments in which humans live in Earth. -10C might be a little on the chilly side but we can survive reasonably well without space-age infrastructure to assist.

Finally, I have updated the Known System data in Aurora with the work I did for Newtonian Aurora. There are now 4250 Known Systems in the database, including all known systems within 100 LY of Sol.

AND THAT'S NOT ALL!

The next version of Aurora (v5.70 at the moment) features a new Production Overview window. This is something I have developed for Newtonian Aurora that I have now added to Standard Aurora. It allows a player to look at all of his industrial projects, research projects and shipbuilding from all populations on a single window. Items that will complete within 3 months are highlighted in green and items that will complete within a year are highlighted in light blue. There are four tabs - one each for Research, Shipbuilding and Industry and a fourth called Imminent Events. This last tab lists all items from all three sectors that will complete within three months, ordered by estimated completion date. This allows a player to quickly look at all of his major production tasks and see when they will be completed. It also has a subset of the time buttons so you can advance time from this window.

CUMMING BUCKETS BROS!

edit: fixed the images.

 

[TripJack]

still need to try this out

what is this newtonian aurora he refers to?

 

[GarfunkeL]

A version of Aurora that uses Newtonian mechanics, instead of the current space fantasy/space is an ocean mechanics.

 

[Raapys]

Gah, he really needs to start working on playability. Until then, most his other efforts are wasted since you need the patience( and life-span) of a stone to actually play the game.

Give me either a proper real-time or a proper turn-based system and support for multi-threading, then I'll be happy to give it yet another go. Interface upgrade wouldn't hurt either, but that one is at least semi-workable.

 

[Grunker]

^ yeah, my thoughts exactly.

Right now it's a great game in theory.

Fuck, sometimes I get so sad thinking about the prospects of true money-backing behind projects like these.

 

[Cassidy]

Gah, he really needs to start working on playability. Until then, most his other efforts are wasted since you need the patience( and life-span) of a stone to actually play the game.

Give me either a proper real-time or a proper turn-based system and support for multi-threading, then I'll be happy to give it yet another go. Interface upgrade wouldn't hurt either, but that one is at least semi-workable.

Exactly. And an AI decent enough to not cheat so much too.

Why is it so difficult to code something like Master of Orion 2 where the game only stops running turns when something truly relevant happens, rather than "new officer joins, now you have to click end turn again just because this happened"?

It is unplayably slow for sure. Only scrapping the BASIC code, saving only the base design and reprogramming it from scratch could fix it at this point.

A more graphical interface using placeholders or public domain images instead of spreadsheet after spreadsheet would help a lot too.

 

[GarfunkeL]

What am I hearing? You weaklings, get out of my Aurora circle-jerk thread.

most his other efforts are wasted since you need the patience( and life-span) of a stone to actually play the game.

I must be a stone then.

a proper real-time or a proper turn-based system

Hey, it IS a proper system. Ever heard of this game called Harpoon? The fact that the game uses a single measurement system throughout it (time, distance) is its strength.

And an AI decent enough to not cheat so much too

AI plays without maintenance. Otherwise it doesn't cheat at all. It plays exactly by the same rules that a human player does.

game only stops running turns when something truly relevant happens, rather than "new officer joins, now you have to click end turn again just because this happened"?

Click "Auto-turns" on and you get your wish. It's what I do, auto-turn on and then 1-day increments running. Game won't stop until something major happens.

Loli hitler is not amused. MoO1, 2 and 3 exist, there's Distant Worlds, Space Empires IV and V, the Stardock games and few others. Don't go ruining my ultimate 4X game, please, by wanting it to be streamlined!

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Loli hitler is not amused.

Moe Hitler.