Aurora - the 4X dwarf fortress

[GarfunkeL]

Destroid no, worse than before because Sol system is now so much bigger. I've played a conventional start from 2000 to 2016 but made the mistake of starting with the default 500 million population which makes the beginning very slow. The biggest change so far is that engines use fuel up like mad, even though I made a fairly economical engine for the Geo-survey ships:

Voyager class Geological Survey Vessel 2,200 tons 55 Crew 367 BP TCS 44 TH 100 EM 0
2272 km/s Armour 1-15 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/2 Damage Control Rating 2 PPV 0
Maint Life 7.93 Years MSP 209 AFR 19% IFR 0.3% 1YR 6 5YR 89 Max Repair 100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months Spare Berths 0

25 EP Nuclear Thermal Engine (4) Power 25 Fuel Use 95% Signature 25 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 200,000 Litres Range 17.2 billion km (87 days at full power)

Geological Survey Sensors (2) 2 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Surveying the outer system is a slooooow process. I should have doubled the fuel capacity.

 

[GarfunkeL]

This is the new Sol system. There's several new colonization locations, I've bolded them. Note that each and every asteroid, dwarf planet and comet is now properly named. No more random comets in Sol either.

Sol-A G2-V Diameter: 1.39m Mass: 1.00 Luminosity: 1.00
Mercury: Colony Cost: 16.21, Temperature: 427.0, Gravity: 0.38, Orbit: 58m
Venus: Colony Cost: 25.00, Temperature: 462.0, Gravity: 0.91, Orbit: 108m
Nitrogen 65%, Carbon Dioxide 35%, Pressure: 100.00
Earth: Colony Cost: 0.00, Temperature: 14.0, Gravity: 1.00, Orbit: 150m
Nitrogen 79%, Oxygen (0.2) 20.0%, Argon 1.00%, Pressure: 1.00
Luna: Colony Cost: 2.00, Temperature: -53.0, Gravity: 0.17, Orbit: 384k
Total Moons: 1
Mars: Colony Cost: 2.00, Temperature: -48.0, Gravity: 0.38, Orbit: 229m
Nitrogen 70%, Carbon Dioxide 30%, Pressure: 0.01
Total Moons: 2
Ceres: Temperature: -105.0, Gravity: 0.03, Orbit: 415m
Jupiter: Temperature: -148.0, Gravity: 2.14, Orbit: 780m
Io: Colony Cost: 5.75, Temperature: -148.0, Gravity: 0.18, Orbit: 422k
Europa: Colony Cost: 5.75, Temperature: -148.0, Gravity: 0.13, Orbit: 671k
Ganymede: Colony Cost: 5.75, Temperature: -148.0, Gravity: 0.15, Orbit: 1.07m
Callisto: Colony Cost: 5.75, Temperature: -148.0, Gravity: 0.13, Orbit: 1.88m
Total Moons: 21
Saturn: Temperature: -178.0, Gravity: 0.74, Orbit: 1.43b
Titan: Colony Cost: 7.00, Temperature: -178.0, Gravity: 0.14, Orbit: 1.22m
Nitrogen 95%, Methane 5.0%, Pressure: 1.60
Total Moons: 28
Uranus: Temperature: -216.0, Gravity: 0.86, Orbit: 2.88b
Total Moons: 27
Neptune: Temperature: -228.0, Gravity: 1.10, Orbit: 4.5b
Total Moons: 13
Pluto: Temperature: -233.0, Gravity: 0.07, Orbit: 5.9b
Total Moons: 3
Quaoar: Temperature: -230.0, Gravity: 0.04, Orbit: 6.5b
Total Moons: 1
Orcus: Temperature: -233.0, Gravity: 0.03, Orbit: 7.2b
Total Moons: 1
Haumea: Temperature: -233.0, Gravity: 0.04, Orbit: 7.6b
Total Moons: 2
Makemake: Temperature: -238.0, Gravity: 0.04, Orbit: 7.8b
Sedna: Temperature: -248.0, Gravity: 0.04, Orbit: 11.4b
Eris: Temperature: -258.0, Gravity: 0.08, Orbit: 14.5b
Total Moons: 1

Asteroid Belt: 478

 

[Trash]

Asper heaven and all that. While I do dig he's updating sol I would love it if he would aim for updating the UI and playability. And add stuff like space elevators and such.

Plus while him naming asteroids is neat he forgets that there are who knows how many objects all over the Kuiper belt we haven't even discovered. He might as well add a random variation there apart from the named ones if he's aiming at realism. We really don't know a whole lot about what's floating around our own system

 

[GarfunkeL]

UI cannot be changed due to Visual Basic 6 being the programming language. There's a fan-project that aims to recreate Aurora in C++ IIRC, they can actually create a GUI for the game. Not sure if they ever finish it though, there's like 3 guys with programming experience who set it up.

 

[TripJack]

well aurora 2 is supposedly going to be done in a real language right?

who knows if that is ever going to happen though

 

[Malakal]

Are all star systems comparable to Sol? In terms of number of planets and other objects.

Also why is basic Earth population 500M when we have like 7B now. Makes no sense.

I would question colony costs for Mercury and Venus, why are they so much more expensive than even Titan...

 

[GarfunkeL]

Aurora 2 isn't going to happen. Steve is busy with Aurora 6.00 now and then he'll probably return to Newtonian Aurora.

Malakal yes and no - no, in the sense that they won't be as detailed but yes, in the sense that they can be as big or actually much bigger. Think of three dwarf stars orbiting a giant one, each with their own planetary systems with moons and super-jovians, plus hundreds of asteroids and a dozen comets. Or they can be just one tiny star completely alone. Any- and everything between as well.

I guess the 500m is a remnant from an old version. It works with TN-start but conventional start gives you less of everything, so if you also have a small population, getting up&running becomes really slow. I used to play with 6B conventional starts, dunno why I didn't do that this time.

The col costs depend on surface temperature and atmosphere. Gravity only determines whether an stellar object can be populated - how far the atmospheric composition and density is from Earth ideal and how far the surface temperature is from comfortable human range determines the actual colonization cost. Which is why it sometimes jumps down markedly when you get a nice atmosphere, even if the temperature isn't correct yet. In this version, Steve augmented the range of acceptable gravity for humans, so Luna (and other moons) can be colonized now, plus he fixed the base temperature of Earth bit lower, which also gives humans a slightly larger acceptable temperature variance - the logic went that we can live in permanent -30 to +40 conditions on Earth without sci-fi tech...

So Mercury is expensive because it has no atmosphere to speak of and is extremely hot. Venus is even more expensive because it's even hotter due to greenhouse effect AND has an unsuitable atmosphere that is 100x Earth's. Luna and Mars are so cheap purely because the temperature is so close to acceptable human levels, so most of terraforming or "infrastructure" required would be for the lack of breathable atmosphere. Titan is 7.00 because of extreme coldness and methane in atmosphere.

 

[TripJack]

it'll happen after newtonian aurora, i expect a release by 2025

right around the release of dorf fortress 1.0

 

[GarfunkeL]

It takes 27 days to reach closest Kuiper Belt objects from Earth when travelling at 2272 km/s. People in the LP might want to note that, especially if you want to get asteroid mining going out there. Meaning that real estate closer to Earth will be quite a bit more valuable than real estate in the outer system.

EDIT: yeah, fuel costs are now so much higher that all old designs need at least double the fuel amount, preferably quadruple. Though again, this is with initial fuel/engine/efficiency techs, situation might get better - but then again, military engines will always remain thirsty buggers.

EDIT2: hahaha, lol, it can take up to 73 days to reach of the more distant Kuiper Belt objects from Earth, depending naturally on Earth's exact position. Still, 2272 km/s is a very respectable speed for Gen1 ships, so strip-mining the Kuiper Belt will be a very slow process.

 

[KoolNoodles]

I was drunk once and tried showing this to my girlfriend, never going to make that mistake again. Now it stays hidden away, for late nights and a cup of tea.

Wonderful idea though, like to have Carl Sagan's Cosmos playing in the background as I reach for the stars.

 

[laclongquan]

Throwing raw materials from the Belt back to Earth is equivalent to pelting it with bullets...

 

[TripJack]

6.3 'beta' released

 

[KoolNoodles]

Cool. Not too much, but glad he's still chipping away. Anomalies sound neat and extra Homeworld minerals is probably needed.

 

[Incantatar]

Is the round lag thing still a thing? Is it bearable? I don't even want to spend hours to learn the game and find out long games are impossible.

 

[KoolNoodles]

I haven't heard that it has improved noticeably, but I haven't really checked in on the forums in a while. For what it's worth, the build up and initial exploration/encounter stuff is still fun in that good masochistic way these games have.

 

[Destroid]

It should be pretty playable with an overclocked i5 or better.

 

[Incantatar]

I'm really hooked at the moment. It's just so hard to get the basic ship building down. Wish the wiki was as good as the DF wiki. Every tutorial i found is out-dated.
One thing that sucks already is the research micromanagement. Every damn fart in the galaxy has to be researched first.

 

[Incantatar]

Are there any good gameplay aars? All i find in the forums is fanfiction/larping.
And is there a way to display my own fleet on the map without the commercial fleets?

 

[titus]

Are there any good gameplay aars? All i find in the forums is fanfiction/larping.

I know only of this one, but I guess it goes into the larp category... It was pretty fun while it lasted though. Abandoned at some point.

 

[KoolNoodles]

There's also the old Codex one.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/lets-see-codex-reach-the-stars-finished.62456/

 

[GarfunkeL]

So latest version is 6.43:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/board,10.0.html

Here is the change log between 6.30 and 6.40:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,6532.0.html

There is STILL a bug with the creation of default missile bases for conventional starts, so DO NOT let the game create them. Untick that box in game creation screen. Slowdowns still happen but they are usually pretty far in the future, so don't let that stop you from learning the game.

I'm of course happy to answer any questions. Note that my old Codex LP is pretty outdated now as there has been big changes to engines.

 

[Cassidy]

This game doesn't deserve to be compared with Dwarf Fortress anymore, because it still is improving with every new version instead of "advancing" towards bloated autistic and SJW bullshit such as the shit Toady would fuck this with were him developing it instead, like:

:incloosive: gay naval officers, planetary foliage simulation and detailed crying and sweating simulation for crew members inside spaceships.

Update thread title plz.



Pity Aurora 2 will never happen though, because the limitations of VB really hinder it. Adding PBEM support* would also be really good.

Also, is there any way to increase the max 3 months of continuous operation before crew morale starts decaying?


*Yeah, it is possible to send Stevefire.mdb through e-mails, but an actual PBEM support with a save system would be much better.

 

[GarfunkeL]

At ship design screen, the upper left has a box for planned tour length. Just change it to whatever you think is good. I have combat ships down for 24 months, survey ships for 48 months, civilians for 3 and fighters&OWPs for 0.01.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Aurora 6.5 is coming in the near future as Steve got his mojo back. As always, changes are mostly bug fixes and then changes he wanted to make due to the current campaign he is waging.

For now, following new features / big changes are confirmed:

Low Level Fleet Training
All combat vessels will slowly gain fleet training points even if they are not involved in training exercises. A combat vessel is defined as one with PPV > 0. During fleet training exercises the annual rate of points gained is the Crew Training Skill of the Task Force Commander plus the operations bonus of the Operations Staff Officer. So if the task force commander has crew training of 200 and the operations officer has an ops bonus of 30%, annual crew training points would be 260. This is further increased by the grade bonus of the ship being trained. A ship has to gain 500 training points to have 100% fleet training skill.

For low level training, which is assumed to be gained through general experience and perhaps simulators, the annual training rate is 30. This is also modified by crew grade. The low level training is to counter the issue of long-serving ships responding just as slowly as newly constructed ships if neither has had any fleet training. In reality, the long-serving crew should have some advantage in that situation even without formal training. Of course, fleet training still be far more effective in terms of creating crews that quickly respond to orders in combat situations.

This is a good change as it made little sense that without TF training, ship crews remained forever as clueless newbies.

Chance of NPR Generating a New NPR

Currently you can set the chance of an NPR appearing on a potentially habitable planet during system generation.

In v6.50 when creating a new game, or editing an existing one, there is an additional parameter for the NPR generation chance when a system is generated by an NPR rather than a player race.

A second new on/off parameter sets whether spoiler races can be generated in new systems discovered by an NPR.

The two above parameters allow players to create a game where the chances of NPRs becoming involved in combat against non-player forces are significantly reduced, which in turn reduces the overall number of slowdowns where the player is uninvolved.

Will help a lot with late-game slow downs.

Army Officer Promotions

Army officers will be promoted at the ratio of 4-1 instead of the current 5-1

Not extremely important but will help get divisional commanders bit quicker.

Fleet Display on System Map

Very minor change. Fleets are now listed in alphabetical order when in the same location on the system map.

Helps readability a bit.

Optional Detection Rules for Systems without Player Presence

Currently, detection takes place in any system where there are units or populations from two different races. Quite often this will be two alien races and the player race is uninvolved.

In v6.50 there will be three options for detection.

1) Existing detection rules

2) Detection will only take place in systems where the player race is present as well as at least one other race. No detection will take place when a system contains only alien races.

3) Normal detection will only take place in systems where the player race is present as well as at least one other race. In systems with two or more alien races but no player races, detection will be automatically successful.

The advantage of 2) is that it will be the quickest of the three options and there will be no combat unless the player is present - no more short turns caused by NPR vs. NPR. The downside is that this is less realistic and you will not discover wreckage from alien wars.

The advantage of 3) is that the sensor phase is quicker than 1) and is more realistic than 2), although still not as realistic as 1). The downside is that you will get more NPR vs NPR battles than you do now (although fewer interrupts as NPRs move in and out of each other's sensor range).

Now this is a big thing. It will finally solve the neverending 5-sec phases that have killed oh-so-many campaigns.

Crew Quarters for Fighters

Added a new ship component:

Crew Quarters - Fighter. Space for 2 crew, cost 0.4, size 0.04.

This is part of the normal design process and will appear if the total crew requirements are 2 or less. In other words, it won't be used as a filler in the same way as small and tiny quarters - just for small, fighter type craft.

No more fighters with 18 spare berths! Meaning that low-tech fighters just became slightly more feasible.

Small Boat Bay

Added Small Boat Bay as as new ship system. Holds 125 tons and costs 60% of the normal Boat Bay.

Steve uses these for "escape shuttles" in his Rigellian campaign. Not really feasible for any crunchy-reason so I guess folks will just use these for fluff.

No Minerals for Prefab PDC Assembly

For some reason I thought I had made this change in a previous version but it appears not

So for the next version, PDC assembly only requires wealth and production capacity; minerals are no longer required. Supplying the minerals was a micromanagement task that didn't real add anything to game play.

Yes! I love PDCs and would like to place them everywhere if I could but the mineral cost has always been a headache. Having pre-fab PDCs being self-contained packages is a good change. You'll still have to deliver missiles to them separately so no fear of losing too much micromanagement :D

NPR Carriers

Non-player races will be capable of using carriers in v6.50. They will design their own fighters and carriers if they have the required technology and the available shipyard space.

While I was severely tempted to not mention this until players ran into the first NPR carriers

, I thought I would mention it up front for a couple of reasons.

1) I will be adding this to my own campaign so it would come out in the fiction anyway
2) Carrier operations are more complex than normal NPR operations so there is a decent chance of something 'weird' happening that I hadn't foreseen. In that case, it is better if players have some idea what is going on.

NPRs don't use fuel or maintenance, so I didn't was concerned that NPR fighters would effectively become just small FACs without a true flavour of carrier ops. Therefore I have put the following rules in place for NPR carrier ops.

1) Even though NPR fighters don't use fuel, they have an operational range (just like player fighters) based on half the distance they could travel if they were using fuel.
2) NPR carriers will only launch fighter strikes if the target is within that operational range and they will remain within range to recover their fighters.
3) NPRs will only build fighters if there are available hangar bays to base them.
4) Fighters that are orphaned (due to the destruction of their mothership) will locate a different carrier with available space and use that instead (available space here means available if all fighters currently assigned to that carrier were on board)
5) NPR Carriers will be built with their fighters to avoid complexity (but this is offset by not building replacements using fighter factories until they are destroyed)
6) Fighters will reload from the magazines on their carriers and those carriers will have to return to base for resupply if their magazines run dry
7) NPR Populations now have a similar number of fighter factories to player populations.

BOOM!

Considering that carriers+missile fighters is the most OP method way of battle in Aurora, this is a great change that hopefully will make NPRs more resistant to players.

 

[GarfunkeL]

After all the changes in 6.5, Steve renamed it to 7 and it's now out!

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8075.0

It's a database change so old games will be wiped out. Word of warning, multiple issues have been brought up by players so it's probably best to wait for 7.1 which should come in a week or so. Also, if you do get it, delete Steve's 2300AD game and then compact the database as that'll help with lag as that game is massive.

List of changes in addition to what I already listed above:

Correct Planet Order on Fleet Window

Finally fixed the annoying problem with planets from different stars being mixed up in the destinations list. Planets will now be ordered by Star and then by orbital number.

A very minor thing but good that it's fixed.

Colonists from Neutral Countries

One of the issues I sometimes find when setting up an Earth-based campaign for the near future is that you have to account for the whole Earth population in the starting setup, or add some catastrophe to reduce that population. Aurora works well with smaller starting pops but you can't really have that in a near future setting unless you have a large number of starting nations. Therefore I have added the option to have races that act only as a source of colonists for other races with the same starting species.

For example, you could have China, US, Russia plus "Rest of the World". You set up the first three normally then select the Neutral Race for Rest of the World during race creation. A Neutral Race has no installations but provides colonists for other races of the same species. To avoid abuse such as transporting them to a colony on the same planet, or a nearby moon, these colonists cannot be transported to a destination in the same system. In effect, this gives relatively small powers the ability to create large populations by taking immigrants from neutral powers (similar to the early United States).

EDIT: Neutral populations will only be available to government-owned colony ships. They won't be accessible to shipping lines.

This is great! It's finally possible to have a "realistic" Earth start without being completely overpowered with seven billion productive citizens and a hundred research labs plus it's a god send for multi-faction starts.

Fewer Jump Points per System

This post is the result of the "Too Many Jump Points" thread in suggestions. There seems to be a general consensus that Aurora has too many systems with a lot of jump points. Therefore I am changing the jump point generation code to create fewer junctions and more systems with 2-3 JPs, resulting in longer chains of systems and less density of systems overall. Here is the pseudo-code for the new standard.

Number of Jump Points = 1
Base Jump Point Chance = 90
Do While True
Jump Point Chance = Round Down to Integer (Base Jump Point Chance + Primary Mass)
If Jump Point Chance> 90 Then Jump Point Chance= 90
If Random Number(1 to 100) > Jump Point Chance Then Exit Loop
Number of Jump Points = Number of Jump Points + 1
If Base Jump Point Chance= 60 Then Base Jump Point Chance= 30
If Base Jump Point Chance= 90 Then Base Jump Point Chance= 60
Loop

This will produce the following proportions of systems assuming mass of 0.99 or less

1 JP: 10%
2 JPs: 36%
3 JPs: 37.8%
4 JPs: 11.34%
5 JPs: 3.40%
6 JPs: 1.02%
7 or more: 0.44%

So now we have about 1 system in 9 (for stars with 0.99 mass or smaller) with 4 JPs and 1 in 20 with 5 or more JPs. Almost three quarters will be 2 or 3 JPs. Junction systems will actually work out a little higher than that because of the higher mass stars making a significant difference at 4+. I have generated several maps with these numbers and it seems to work out OK.

Steve's 2300AD game showed that this system works well. Instead of a massive spider-web, stars now align more into rough corridors. Downside is that it'll now be necessary to travel more kilometres.

Longer Pathfinding

Because of the changes to jump point generation in v6.50, colonies will generally be further away from each other, both in terms of distance and in the number of jump points. This means the existing pathfinding code, used by shipping lines and by default & conditional orders, is more restrictive than before due to the four jump limit.

Therefore I have completely rewritten the pathfinding code and removed any restriction on distance. Civilians can now reach your colonies no matter where they are, as long as they have JG access. Your own ships can follow refuelling orders, etc. at any distance from home. The downside to this will be performance, although the new version of the code is more efficient anyway. I'm testing this in my current campaign but I suspect this is another area where wider testing will find the bugs

This is another huge change. Before, your civilian sector only worked max 4 jump gates from Sol and that's that. This was a major pain in the butt once your empire grew larger than that because you couldn't leave expansion outside that bubble for civilians.

Forced Low Tech Races

There is a new check box on the Game Creation and Game windows that allows you to specify that all new races discovered during the normal exploration process will be non-TN. Whether they are NPRs or not will depend on the existing 'Generate Races as NPRs' check box.

This is useful should you be playing a 2300AD style campaign and want to simulate the discovery of a few low tech races before the Kafer-equivalent shows up

Pretty much only useful for RP-campaigns I guess or a multiplayer game where you don't want advanced aliens to pop up.

Boronide for Fuel Refineries

Fuel Refineries currently require 120 units of Duranium. Given the increased fuel needs due to the jump point changes, more refineries are required so the 100% Duranium requirement is unbalanced.

For v6.50 Fuel Refineries will require 30 Duranium and 90 Boronide (as fuel harvester modules already require Boronide)

Boronide was one of the lesser used minerals. Anything that lightens the Duranium crunch is welcome.

System Discovery Dates on Galactic Map

I've added the ability to display the date each system was discovered on the Galactic Map. Helps if you are reconstructing how a race expanded into space.

Cosmetics.

More Detail in SM Comparison Window

I have added some extra columns to the SM Comparison window (which lists high level stats for player races).

Shipyard capacity is now split into Naval and Commercial, shipping tonnage is split into Naval, Commercial and Civilian, Fuel Refineries have been split out from factories and I have added a Fuel Stockpile column.

More cosmetics though kinda useful for writing an AAR of multi-faction game.

Shorter Period Comets

Comets other than those in the Sol system are often very long period comets, which are usually not economically exploitable due to the distances involved. They also can lure auto-surveying ships a long way out from the primary.

Therefore for v6.50 I have changed the comet generation code so comets in other systems are generally much closer to Sol style comets in terms of aphelion ranges.

I haven't really been bothered with comets before but I tend to micro-manage my survey crafts anyway.

Increased Fuel Production

The changes to jump point generation have increased distances significantly. As almost every nation in my current campaign is out of fuel after 3.5 years

it would seem the current fuel production is no longer sufficient. Therefore I am doubling the fuel production for v6.50.

This will also consume twice as much Sorium so Fuel Harvesters will again move up a little in importance (because your mines may not keep up with the needs of refineries)

In addition, I am changing Fuel Harvesters to use the current Fuel Production Rate rather than the Mining Rate

After duranium crunch, the fuel crash is the second campaign killer so good news indeed.

NPR Interrupts

There has been some debate on the forums about NPR interrupts so I thought it was worth clarifying how they work and what has changed for v6.50

There are two ways in which a turn can be shortened. If the program believes something is about to happen, like a missile or ship entering detection range, it will shorten the turn at the start. The second is through an interrupt, which is caused by a notable event and ends the turn so that the player (or an NPR) can react to it. Some interrupts are player only, such a ship being constructed or a system being surveyed, and some are interrupts for both players and NPR, such as a ship being destroyed or missiles being launched.

Note that the NPR AI code for movement and combat takes place at the start of a turn, so if anything significant happens relating to an NPR, the NPR needs a new turn in order to evaluate the event and react to it. Once a player interrupt occurs, it ends automated turns so the player can react. However, the AI doesn't need a break to react - it just needs to start a new turn - so interrupts are flagged as Player Events or Non-Player Events. A Player event is either something directly affecting a player, or an NPR event that involves a player, such as the NPR detecting the player. For NPR events that do not involve players, Automated Turns are not switched off. This is how it works in 6.40 btw - not a change for v6.50.

It's also worth noting that Automatic Turns only work if you are using the Tactical Map - the time buttons on the Population Window or the Galactic Map don't use Automated Turns.

In v6.40 there are 264 different events in Aurora, 60 of which don't cause interrupts for players and 184 of which don't cause interrupts for NPRs. For v6.50 I revisited the event list to see if I can reduce the number of interrupts for NPRs and now there are only 27 events that will trigger NPRs interrupts. The list is shown below. These are all events that the AI will need to evaluate and potentially issue a change in orders.

In addition for v6.50, I am going to change Player Events to only events that directly involve the player, so an NPR detecting a player will no longer stop automated turns.

He also included a list of events that will cause an interruption but that's not important here. Anyway, this is another massive change and should reduce the turn lag significantly.

List of Systems with Wrecks

On the Display2 tab on the tactical map, there is a list of known ruins. There is now an option to toggle the list to display known systems with wrecks.

This is slightly unrealistic as it will reveal wrecks that appear when you have no ships in the system. However, I thought the usefulness of this in large games would outweigh the realism concern.

Cosmetics.

Gravity on Mineral Survey Window

A minor change. I've added a gravity a column to the mineral survey summary window, mainly so you can see if creating a lower gravity species (through genetic modification) would allow you to place manned mines on currently inaccessible system bodies.

Anything that makes genetic manipulation actually worth the hassle is welcome.

Larger Compressed Fuel Storage Systems

If you discover a Compressed Fuel Storage System in a ruin, you can now research Large and Very Large versions as well.

No more stacking 100x CFSS on a ship!

Filter Contacts by Race

On the system map you can currently filter contacts by their neutrality status or by civilian status.

In v6.50, you can also filter by Race, so you can restrict the view to only the contacts from a particular race. This can be combined with the existing filters. This is particularly useful if you have fourteen players races and a lot of civilian traffic

I also fixed the bug that displayed the active sensor signatures of ships that were excluded by neutrality status.

Yeah, very good for multi-faction start and that bug used to drive me nuts as it also left ghost sensors on the map forever.

Generating Specific Known Stars

In v6.50, when you select Generate System in a known stars game, you can now choose which system to generate. This allows you to start in Alpha Centauri, or Rigel, or Antares, or setup NPRs in those systems.

The list of systems from which you can choose shows the name, the types of stars, the distance from Sol and the coordinates in 3D space relative to Sol.

By default, the generic system names (Gliese xx, HIP xx, NN xx, etc.) are excluded. You can display them though if you wish.

You can also show systems already in the game, if you want to see how they compare in terms of distance to non-generated systems. These are shown with a grey background.

EDIT: Although not shown below, I have also added a function that allows you to select a system, then re-sort everything based on ascending order of distance from that selected system.
EDIT #2: Any existing systems that have been renamed by the race looking at the list will appear with their correct racial name, rather than the generally used name for the system.

Mainly useful for people wanting to start outside of Sol.