Aurora - the 4X dwarf fortress

[KoolNoodles]

This fucking "game". Thanks.

 

[GarfunkeL]

This fucking "game". Thanks.

Well, once Steve fixes the sensor bug and database issue. I'll start a new AAR-LP in Playground for sure.

 

[eklektyk]

what killed it for me was unfortunate database crapping itself after few years ...
i could browse codex in beetween multiminutes turns and go by but gamestopping bug that u need dev password to fix is unfortunate
hoping he will resolve most problems soon as its still best strategy game i ever played by far

 

[GarfunkeL]

I don't think we'll ever be rid of database killer-bugs completely. It's just the nature of the beast. I'm just happy that W10 runs VB6 programs.

 

[Kalin]

Garf, what's the deal with the sensors anway? Is there some way to lessen the slog, like banning civilian shipping?

We need another multiplayer game already, and by Jove, it's your destiny to GM it! No excuses, just do it!

 

[GarfunkeL]

Well, basically every sensor needs to check at every sub-pulse whether it can spot another vessel or not. The more sensors and targets for them there are, the slower it goes. Then it gets really annoying when an NPR ship moves in and out of sensor range repeatedly, always causing an interrupt. Previously, the only solution was to use SM to create a space-time bubble around Sol, if two NPRs were slugging it out elsewhere, but that was a really poor solution as it meant that time didn't really pass for any other system. Now, Steve has reduced the number of interrupts and also made it possible for player to tinker with detection algorithm:

1) System as it has always been - the most realistic approach.

2) No detection check for empty systems or system with only player race presence - this means that NPRs will be invisible to each other. Speeds up sensor checks, ie "end of turn"-syndrome, but makes for unrealistic gameplay as there just won't be any contact between NPRs and/or spoilers and can lead to strange situations like an NPR colonizing a spoiler system with a massive war erupting as soon as the first player ship jumps in. There won't be wrecks to be found either.

3) Automatic detection for aliens, normal for human - meaning that NPRs will always detect each other and spoilers but if a player ship jumps into a system, that system then adopts 1) approach. It's more realistic than 2) because NPRs/spoilers will not be invisible to each other and they will thus wage wars but it reduces the "end of turn"-syndrome as NPRs will not have sensor check interrupts.

Unfortunately the system is currently bugged - I don't know how Steve didn't spot the issue in his test campaigns - and waiting for 7.1 patch. I used to run with 0 NPRs at game start because of this reason but will most likely run with 1 starting NPR and detection set 3) from now on.

As for a multiplayer game, patience. I want to run at least one good SP campaign to get a grip on how the changes have affected the game and to whet my appetite for more. Plus will need to figure out a good starting scenario setting. Conventional start might not be the best idea either or perhaps some sort of advanced conventional start but not quite a TN-start with ready-made fleets etc.

 

[Hellraiser]

Omniventures shall rise again!

 

[RhodokMasterRaceOfficial]

How feasible are nomadic games now? I.E games where you try to remain ship-based using colonies only periodically for things that can only be done from the ground (like building ships and carrying out research). I've been looking at setting one up in Space Master but I'm not all that certain how to approach the challenges of one. It'll obviously require tonnes of "roleplaying" and "acceptable cheats" via SM Mode, that much is certain.

 

[GarfunkeL]

There's a guy on the official forums who has done it and basically it's not feasible unless you go crazy with the tech and ship sizes. None of the changes have made nomadic games any easier to run.

 

[RhodokMasterRaceOfficial]

There's a guy on the official forums who has done it and basically it's not feasible unless you go crazy with the tech and ship sizes. None of the changes have made nomadic games any easier to run.

RIP. I wanted to set up a Homeworld-style campaign where I travel from the edge of the "real stars" map space towards Earth. I saw that campaign though, that looked like it was fun.

I still want to be able to set a specific time for the

Spoiler

invaders

to arrive. I mean sure, it's tonnes of !!FUN!! when the

Spoiler

invaders

show up in the very first extrasolar system you explore and proceed to

Spoiler

you actually fucking clicked this

but this game takes a lot longer to establish yourself in than Dorf Fort does, so getting ganked early by a

Spoiler

spoiler

is mostly just draining. I've read on the forums that sometimes they never show up at all, though, or they've got a survey ship out in the middle of nowhere that nobody's managed to kill yet and so no more of them are spawning until it gets found.

What excites me a bunch though about 6.5 (7.0?) is this:

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 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.

Time to get my Freespace on.

 

[GarfunkeL]

So apparently Steve got his groove back on and instead of just fixing bugs for 7.10, he's adding new features! Most likely very buggy features but hey:

Populated Asteroids

Currently, all asteroids are listed as low gravity and unsuitable for populations (except for automated mines, tracking stations, etc.) unless they use underground infrastructure or orbital habitats.

As someone pointed out on the forum, some asteroids have gravity that falls within the habitable range. This is more apparent since the human default gravity range was expanded.

Therefore in v7.10, asteroids with a gravity of at least 0.02G are treated like any other body when assessing colony cost. So now you will be able to establish normal populations on larger asteroids. They still won't have atmospheres but those could be added via terraforming.

This will also make the bioengineering of low gravity species much more useful.

Colony Independence

In v7.1 there is a new button on the Population window named 'Independence'

If you select a colony and press this, the colony will become a new independent state. For the moment, this can only be done for player races and the new state will also be a player race.

The new state will have the following knowledge from the existing state:
Research, including race-specific technology.
All systems and their jump points
All gravitational and geological survey data
Map display settings
Rank structures
Race theme
Alien race information and relationship status

All population and installations will be transferred.
Any shipyards will be transferred, although any existing tasks will be cleared and all retooling reset.
All existing industry tasks will be cleared.
Any ground units (and their commanders) will be transferred
Any teams or commanders on the surface will be transferred
Colony governor will be transferred
A portion of wealth will be transferred equal to the size of the population compared to the old race as a whole.

Ships in orbit are not transferred (but can be at player discretion) and no new shipping line is created (although one may appear later).

This is a little experimental so proceed with caution when using this. Backup the database first

. There is so much knowledge associated with a new race that there may be some complication that turns up that I hadn't considered. Even so, this adds a lot of flexibility to role-playing. If it works as intended then I will also add the possibility of independence due to high unrest.

[quote]If it works as intended then I will also add the possibility of independence due to high unrest.[/quote]



FUCK YEAH!

Where's the fap fap icon when you need it? Not only will this make LARPing campaigns easier but when it works properly - ie not killing the database - and gets added as a "proper" feature and not just a SM thing, players will finally have to consider the feelings of the colonists they dump into frozen hellholes to mine shit forever.

What excites me a bunch though

Did you read Steve's Rigellian Diaries? He got fucking raped by NPR carriers in that test campaign. I have never wanted to get raped before but now I do.

 

[eklektyk]

i must admit im getin hyped a bit ....twas awhile since i lost ships in space and all that ...

 

[Raapys]

Difficult to get hyped when you spend more time processing next 'turn' than playing the game ;|

 

[tindrli]

nevertheless its getting deep as deep it can be

 

[Kalin]

As for a multiplayer game, patience. I want to run at least one good SP campaign to get a grip on how the changes have affected the game and to whet my appetite for more. Plus will need to figure out a good starting scenario setting. Conventional start might not be the best idea either or perhaps some sort of advanced conventional start but not quite a TN-start with ready-made fleets etc.

The latter sounds like the best way, perhaps a start where all factions are pretty much at the point where we left off in Clash of Cultures? All teched up and graduated from pre-TN kindergarten, but not yet colonizing other systems. In such a start you could assign each player something like the following on Earth:

Spoiler

700 million population
100 Infrastructure
15 Deep Space Tracking Stations
1 Commercial Spaceport
5 Military Academies
2 Civilian Shipyards, 50,000 capacity
2 Naval Shipyards, 10,000 capacity
50 Maintenance facilities
250 Construction Factories
500 Conventional Industry
50 Fuel Refineries
250 Mines
50 Automated Mines
1 Mass Driver
15 Research Labs
2 Ground Force Training Facilities

5 academies or more really seems to be needed since if I understand it correctly, you simply can't get enough specialists otherwise (for example, I didn't get a single espionage team in the last game and was really strapped for good scientists, which is part of the reason I invested so heavily in ground tech). To make it less uniform you could roll to add some variation (think that was the case last time too) so that each faction would get its own bonus and whatnot, spice things up a bit. A bunch of garrison units right off the bat would also serve as a counter to early conquests, and would be very helpful since they could function as police forces in newly established colonies (provided that someone builds a troop transport, obviously).

If someone would drop out, it might be best to simply destroy their faction (if possible) or have its assets and population annexed more or less evenly by the other players. The race for the "neutral" factions was a lot of fun, but in hindsight the loot was simply too good.

As for research, I'd say every faction should get at least the following techs for free (if applicable, probably outdated list):

Spoiler

Genome Sequence Research
TN Technology
Asteroid Mining Module
Sorium Harvester
Armour
Additional Maintenance Storage
Assault Infantry
Cargo Handling System
Construction Brigade
Crew Quarters
Cryogenic Transport
Troop Transport Bay
Engineering Section
Flag Bridge
Fuel Storage, small
Garrison Battalion
Mobile Infantry
Maintenance Module
Replacement Battalion
Snazzy engines and power
Active Grav Sensor Strength 10
EM Sensor Sensitivity 6
Geological Survey Sensors
Thermal Sensor Sensitivity 6

This would leave most combat techs unresearched so players could specialise in whatever they'd like on that front. It might also make sense to give the 2 first ranks of research/construction/mining boosting tech for free, since the factions that go for them early on really benefit a lot.

As for diplomacy, big trades between factions probably shouldn't be completely invisible to the others - some subtle or not so subtle hints at major tech and big chunks of minerals passing back and forth would go a long way to keep players in the loop of what's going on around the world. Could maybe also roll for espionage chance for players to glean more specific details of dealings between other factions they have infiltrated, although that might create a lot of slog, of course.

Finally, I think it'd be nice to give every player complete survey information of Sol right from the start, call it a U.N. survey or whatnot. That way, no one would have to waste time and the precious first free designs for shipyards on survey ships (well, at least not in the starter system, would be quite a race for the others of course) and they could decide right away where to focus on colonizing.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Those are certainly some good ideas and I'll go over them once time becomes more ripe.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Version 7.10 is out:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8143.0

 

[RhodokMasterRaceOfficial]

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8151.msg86423#msg86423

Titans

A new type of ground unit will be introduced in v7.2 - the Titan. Titans are huge combat walkers from WH40k, BattleTech, etc.,

In Aurora, they serve as powerful ground combat units with a special bombardment ability and defensive advantages. Below is the current state of the rules (which may change after play test):

1) Titans are created in a new type of planetary installation - the Titan Construction Yard. The TCY is 10,000 RP, 2400 BP (240 Duranium, 2160 Corbomite) and produces 200 BP per year. The TCY becomes available once Assault Infantry is researched. They can be recovered in ruins (although rarely). Titans are constructed like other ground combat units using the same tab in the production window. Titan Construction Yards and Ground Force Training Facilities are shown in the same list (like naval and commercial shipyards).

2) Titans are transported in the Titan Bay, a special type of module for ships similar to a troop transport bay. Titans cannot use troop transport bays and normal ground units cannot use Titan Bays. Movement orders for embarking and disembarking Titans work in the same way as orders for embarking and disembarking ground troops. Titans cannot use combat drop modules. The Titan Bay is 5000 RP and can be researched once you have Titan Construction Yards and troop transport bays. Cost: 100 BP (10 Duranium, 90 Corbomite) , Size 100 HS, 25 Crew. Commercial System. Can hold 3 units of Titans.

3) Titans act as normal ground combat units with attack and defence strengths and take part in normal combat resolution.

4) They have Hit Points instead of readiness but these are equivalent in combat. Titans may have more than 100 HPs (ground forces always have 100 readiness)

5) Titans do not recover hit points in the same way that ground units recover readiness. Instead they are automatically repaired in Titan Bays using maintenance supplies at a rate of 1 HP per day (1 HP costs 1 MSP), as long as MSP are available.

6) Titans are unaffected by Morale

7 In normal ground combat, Titans have a lower chance to be damaged. This is similar to HQ units, which have only 50% of the normal chance of damage. The lower chance of damage will vary by Titan.

8) After each round of ground combat, Titans will bombard the enemy (calculated before combat and resolved afterwards). This is effectively a free attack and does not consider attack vs. defence odds. The target is determined randomly but all enemy Titans will be attacked before any normal ground units. The bombardment attack inflicts random readiness damage (or HP damage) between 1 and double the Titans attack strength rating. Bombardment attacks cause collateral damage.

9) The Titan's lower chance of damage modifier does not apply during bombardment attacks. In effect, the bombardment attack represents the Titan's "Big Guns" while its participation in normal combat represents its secondary armament and attempts by enemy ground forces to destroy it.

10) The first Titans in the game are as follows (more will be added at some point, including command Titans to serve as HQs):

Warhound Titan: 10,000 RP, 200 BP, 100 HP, Attack/Defence: 1 * Racial Ground Combat Strength, 0.75 x Chance of Damage, Size 1
Reaver Titan: 20,000 RP, 360 BP, 200 HP, Attack/Defence: 2 * Racial Ground Combat Strength, 0.50 x Chance of Damage, Size 2
Warlord Titan: 50,000 RP, 500 BP, 300 HP, Attack/Defence: 3 * Racial Ground Combat Strength, 0.25 x Chance of Damage, Size 3

Titan production requires 20% Duranium and 80% Corbomite.

The first Titan (Warhound) become available after Assault Infantry
The second Titan (Reaver) requires Heavy Assault and the Warhound as prerequisites.
The third Titan (Warlord) requires the Reaver as a prerequisite.

As with normal ground units, you can name individual Titans and rename the overall classes of Titans.

Dunno how I feel about this, to be honest. If titans were to be added at all, it'd be far more ideal if they were designed like PDCs rather than built like regular ground units.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Unless I'll run a WH40k themed game, I'll LARP that "titans" in my game are just advanced air-ground support elements, ie a mixture of ground-attack planes and attack helicopters.

Aside from that, the big news is that Steve is porting Aurora from VB6 to C#. Obviously a massive change. Version 7.10 will remain as the last VB6 version - there will not be a 7.20 update as the first C# version will be numbered as 8.00 and will include all the bug fixes and new features that he had planned for 7.20.

To see all the screenshots and Steve's comments on them without distracting posts from other users, click on this thread: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8455.0

Here is an inconclusive list of feature adds/changes - note that many small things are being changed as well, lot of quality-of-life changes have been included:

Low Gravity Infrastructure

Underground Infrastructure is replaced with Low Gravity Infrastructure (or LG-Infrastructure). This will be built and transported in the same way as regular infrastructure, except it will be more expensive - probably 6 BP instead of 2 BP.

Any low gravity bodies (below the minimum gravity of the colonising species) will now have a normal colony cost calculation (based on atmosphere, temperature, pressure, etc.) and an 'LG' suffix will be added. For any bodies with an LG suffix, the maximum supported population will be based on the available LG-Infrastructure.

For example, for a colony cost 2.00 world you need 200 infrastructure per 1m pop. For a colony cost 2.00(LG) world, you will need 200 LG-Infrastructure per 1m pop and normal infrastructure will have no effect.

Both normal infrastructure and AG-Infrastructure can be used on a world with gravity in the tolerable range. Worlds with gravity above max species gravity will not be colonizable.

Civilian infrastructure production on a low gravity world will be LG Infrastructure, produced at one third of the normal rate (same overall cost). Trade in infrastructure will be low gravity to low gravity or acceptable gravity to acceptable gravity .

I believe this change will maintain the concept of colonising low gravity bodies at a higher cost but will be a lot cleaner and easier.

Naming Themes

In VB6 Aurora, we have racial themes that include system names, class names and rank names, plus a variety of ship name themes.

For C# Aurora, they are all amalgamated into Naming Themes, which can be used individually for Classes, Systems and Ships. Ranks will be handled separately.

A race will select a Class Naming Theme, a System Naming Theme and a Rank Theme (so you can use current Ship name themes at the Race level). Each Ship Class can also have a Naming Theme.

The Naming Themes comprises everything previously used for Ships, plus the existing Racial Themes separated out into the System and Class elements (and named appropriately so you can replicate existing Race Themes if desired).

This should be a lot more flexible while allowing everything you can do now.

Repair Task in Shipyards Window.

When selecting the repair task in the shipyards window, only classes / ships needing repair and currently in orbit will be displayed. In VB6 Aurora, all classes / ships in orbit are displayed and you have to cycle through to find the damaged ships.

If no ships in orbit are in need of repair, the class and ship drop downs will be empty.

Shipbuilding Changes

I'm using this post as a placeholder to post any shipbuilding changes. So far the changes are:

1) You can't refit a damaged ship.
2) Scrapping/Deleting is much more intelligent about moving commanders, teams and ground units from a ship to the scrapping population (in case you accidentally scrap or delete a ship with them on board). Fuel, maintenance and ordnance are also automatically unloaded.
3) When a ship undergoes refit, fuel, maintenance and ordnance are moved from (or to) the refitting population to account for the differences post-refit.

I once had like a dozen experienced commanders sitting in Limbo for years because I didn't realise that they were still assigned to non-existing ships :D

Multiple Ground Unit Selection

In C# Aurora you can select multiple ground units using Shift-Click or Ctrl-Click. When assigning multiple units, Aurora will work out the best arrangement. For example, lets assume you assign multiple brigade HQs and battalions to a Division HQ with some of the battalions already attached to the brigades, but not all of them.

1) If the Division HQ has spare slots, the selected brigade HQs will be attached along with any existing sub-units. Any brigade HQs beyond the capacity of the division will not be transferred.

2) The selected battalions (that were not already transferred with a brigade HQ) will be assigned to spare slots in any of the brigade HQs (new or pre-existing) attached to the division. Any battalions beyond the capacity of the brigade HQs will not be transferred.

3) You can transfer battalions or brigade HQs that already have a parent HQ without transferring the parent HQ itself. These units will be reassigned as above but only removed from their existing parent HQ if there is sufficient room in the target formation.

You can also use multiple selections for Disband, Create Cadre and Transfer to other populations. For renaming, only the first selected unit will be renamed. This new functionality will make manipulating ground units a lot easier than in VB6 Aurora.

Occupation Strength Update

In C# Aurora, forces based in ground bases (renamed from PDCs) will no longer count toward occupation strength. Either they remain on the surface and subdue the population (but are vulnerable to orbital attack) or move into the relatively safety of an ground base and lose their ability to influence the occupied population.

I'm not sure I ever laid out the full mechanics for this so I'll list them here:

1) Resistance of population is (determination + militancy + xenophobia)/300

2) Required Occupation Strength is: Resistance * Pop in Millions * Political Status Occupation Modifier (Conquered = 1, Occupied = 0.75, Subjugated = 0.25)

3) Occupation Strength is the defence strength of all units on the population and not within a ground base (defence strength is based on unit defence strength modified by readiness, morale, commander bonus and racial ground combat strength)

4) Police Strength = Occupation Strength - Required Occupation Strength

5) Effective Population Size = Resistance * Pop in Millions

6) Police Modifier = (Police Strength / Effective Population Size) * 100

7) Each construction phase, the amount of unrest points removed is equal to: Police Modifier * 100 * Fraction of Year

8) Until unrest is zero, the population will not gain status points toward the next political status.

Trade Good Modifiers

In VB6 Aurora, civilian production of trade goods is affected by the population size, the race wealth creation rate, the production rate of each specific trade good, the political status of the colony and the wealth modifier of the planetary and sector governors.

In C# Aurora, it will also be affected by radiation and unrest.

Reaction Bonus

A commander's initiative bonus has been replaced by a new Reaction Bonus. This serves two functions:

1) Fleets (both player and NPR) will move in ascending order of the average reaction bonus of the ship commanders in the fleet.
2) Response time for orders (when hostiles are present), which is based on fleet training, will be further reduced by the average reaction bonus of the ship commanders in the fleet.
3) Any ship without a designated commander will be treated as if it has a commander with a 0% bonus.

This will make life easier - no more fiddling manually with the fleet initiative for TGs depending on whether you wanted it to be intercepting or evading. Plus it was counter-intuitive to understand in the first place.

Naval Organization

Instead of the Task Forces and Task Groups in VB6 Aurora, C# Aurora takes an approach similar to the optional functionality of the VB6 Naval Organisation tab, albeit with much easier and more flexible UI. There are four primary components of Naval Organisation; Admin Commands, Fleets (VB6 Task Groups), Sub-Fleets and Ships. Every race starts with a single top level Admin Command (which can't be deleted but can be renamed). All other Admin Commands descend in a tree from this one. You can only attach an Admin Command to another Admin Command but you can have an unlimited number of levels in the Admin Command hierarchy.

Fleets can only be attached to Admin Commands. Many fleets can be attached to the same Admin Command but each fleet can only be attached to one Admin Command

Sub-Fleets can only be attached to a Fleet, or to another sub-fleet. You can have an unlimited number of levels within the sub-fleet hierarchy. These are used to organise the ships within the larger fleets. Sub-fleets have no on-map function and all ships within the sub-fleet hierarchy move within the parent fleet. You can detach a sub-fleet, at which point it becomes a full fleet in its own right. Any sub-fleets further down the sub-fleet hierarchy become sub-fleets of this new fleet. A new 'join as sub-fleet' order is available. When one fleet joins another using this order, its ships will automatically form a sub-fleet within the joined fleet, allowing them to subsequently detach as a whole unit.

A Ship can be attached to a Fleet or to a sub-fleet. When attached to a sub-fleet, it is still a member of the parent Fleet at the top of the sub-fleet hierarchy.

The sidebar tree of the new Naval Organisation window (see Screenshots thread) has full drag and drop functionality so you can move Admin Commands, Fleets, Sub-Fleets and Ships around as long as the above rules are followed. You can also drag ships and sub-fleets between different fleets as long as they are in the same physical location. Entire sections of the tree can be moved with a single drag-drop. Also, you can open up multiple Fleet windows and drag and drop between the trees in two different windows.

Shipping Line Earnings and Tax

For C# Aurora, the distance a civilian ship has travelled (in terms of systems) will affect how much the shipping line receives in payment and how much tax is generated.

All VB6 payment rates will be halved as a baseline but multiplied by the number of systems travelled. So a civilian ship travelling to a destination two transits away will receive the same payment as in VB6 Aurora. A ship travelling to a destination five transits away will receive 250% of the current payment. This applies to trading and to player contracts.

A civilian ship travelling within the same system will be paid half of the one-system rate (which is half what is currently paid in VB6).

This should reduce some of the early game bloating of civilian traffic but make it workable for the later game with longer distances (especially with the new jump point generation in v7.1 of VB6 Aurora).

Load & Unload Cargo

In VB6 Aurora, ships load or unload cargo, colonists, etc. on arrival and then undergo a wait period before their next order (based on how long it takes for the load/unload process).

In C# Aurora, the wait period will take place first and then the cargo will be loaded or unloaded at the end. Because of this change, if the fleet abandons the order before it is complete, no transfer of cargo will have taken place.

Refuelling Changes

In C# Aurora, refuelling is no longer instant and ships without specialised equipment cannot exchange fuel in space. A ship can only refuel at a Spaceport, a Refuelling Station, a ship with a Refuelling System or a base with a Refuelling Hub.

A new technology line - Refuelling Systems - provides the basis of the rate of refuelling and allows ships to mount systems to refuel other ships. The baseline system (Refuelling System: 50,000 LPH) sets the racial refuelling rate at 50,000 litres per hour and allows the use of the first ship-mounted Refuelling System.There are ten further steps in the tech progression with the highest tech system allowing refuelling at 500,000 litres per hour.

Spaceports, Refuelling Stations or Refuelling Hubs will always use the highest tech refuelling rate and can refuel an unlimited number of ships simultaneously. However, the ships being refuelled must be stationary.

Spaceports have doubled in cost to 2400 BP but can now be moved by freighters. They are equal to four research facilities for transport purposes (or 80 factories). They retain their existing bonuses to loading and unloading cargo.

Refuelling Stations are a new installation with a cost of 1200 BP. They do not require workers and can be moved by freighters. They have a transport size equal to 10 factories. Essentially, they are a cut-down version of a spaceport intended to facilitate refuelling in forward areas, transferring fuel from the surface of a planet to the waiting ships. They have no bonuses for loading or unloading cargo.

A Refuelling Hub can be mounted on a ship. It is a commercial system with a research cost of 10,000 RP, build cost of 2400 BP and a size of 100,000 tons. In practical terms, this is likely to form part of a large, deep-space station, due to the size and cost, rather than being deployed on tankers that will accompany fleets

A Refuelling System is 500 tons and has a cost ranging from 10 BP to 100 BP, depending on the tech level. A ship with a Refuelling System can refuel a single ship at once, so will take some time to refuel a whole fleet, although this will improve with higher technology. At the early tech levels, the Refuelling System can only be used if both ships (tanker and target ship) are both stationary. Another new tech line, Underway Replenishment, allow the refuelling to take place while both ships are in the same fleet and underway. Priorities can be set for the refuelling order when multiple ships are involved. The first Underway Replenishment tech allows refuelling at 20% of the normal rate (2500 RP), rising to 100% with the highest tech (40,000 RP).

Refuelling order types will be adjusted to deal with the new requirements. Fuel will be transferred during each movement increment as time passes until the target ship has full tanks. I may add some other options regarding partially filling as well.

I will be adding some rules along the same lines regarding ordnance transfer.

This is a pretty big change to fleet operations. Tankers will become even more valuable.

Assignment of Ships to Populations

In VB6 Aurora, ships such as terraformers or asteroid miners have to be assigned to populations in order to provide that population with any applicable production. This is because an empire may have multiple populations on the same world and the ships can only provide support to one of them. When a fleet reaches a population, the ships within it are automatically assigned. However, there are still situations (such as transferring between fleets) when this assignment is not always picked up. While the problem can easily be fixed by ordering the fleet to the population, it is not always obvious it needs to be fixed. This can lead to ships sitting idle in orbit.

In C# Aurora, the assignment to the population will be at the fleet level, rather than by ship, and the same auto-assignment will happen when a fleet moves to a population. However, when a population checks orbital space for any assigned fleets during production, it will automatically grab any unassigned fleets in orbit and assign them to itself. This should avoid any situations where ships remain idle.

Basically a persistent bug fix. You could circumvent the above issue by ordering new miners/harvesters/terraformers to first go to the planetary body and then join the existing TG there, instead of directly joining the TG but at least no more newbies will suffer.

Standard transits by Fleets with Commercial and Military Ships

In VB6 Aurora, fleets that included at least one ship with military engines could only use military jump drives for standard transits, which meant you had to split out commercial-engined ships into a separate fleet and escort them with a commercial jump drive ship.

In C# Aurora, commercial-engined and military-engined ships are treated separately. So if you have a fleet with mixed engine types that also includes ships with commercial and military jump drives, it will still carry out a standard transit if the respective jump drives are large enough for the ships with the matching respective engine types. However, if any ship with either engine type can't jump, the whole fleet will fail to transit.

Squadron jumps are handled differently so I will cover that in a separate post.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Right!

C# is coming in March, Steve has confirmed that he will push it out then. The feature list has exploded over time, you can read ALL 14 PAGES of it here:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.0

 

[Kuattro]

Between this and Distant Worlds 2, 2020 is looking like the year of the prophecy.

 

[Incantatar]

Right!

C# is coming in March, Steve has confirmed that he will push it out then. The feature list has exploded over time, you can read ALL 14 PAGES of it here:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.0

 

[Chaosdwarft]

GarfunkeL you got my hopes up here I thought it was already released

 

[Incantatar]

Has he made any comments about performance in longer games? It's the one thing making Aurora unplayable atm. Pretty sure it will be better, but is it >hugely< better?

 

[fastjack]

Has he made any comments about performance in longer games? It's the one thing making Aurora unplayable atm. Pretty sure it will be better, but is it >hugely< better?

Supposed to be much much faster, but I forget the numbers, sorry.