Aurora, a 4X strategy game. ITT: Terrible spreadsheet jokes. - Games

[QUOTE=scout1;38712588]It's simply a carrier. Reduced fuel costs to fly one billion kilometers (while the corvette sits safely outside DETECTABLE sensor range and return weapons fire). Then, at the edge of PD, it splits into a bunch of small max warhead/engine submunitions with 0.01 fuel or so.[/QUOTE] Oh I thought so. But size 40 or 80 is still just so much tonnage better spent on fuel, engines, and box launchers. But each to it's own. I just have this "Grand Slam" doctrine embedded to my every campaign; large numbers of smaller ships with lots of missile tubes/railguns launching one large salvo that obliterates all of the enemy ships in one go. Or just one capital ship that just mobs the floor with everyone and still has enough juice to go for a tour in their home system.

Are there any "milestones" that I could use when it comes to this? It's the year 2039 (14 years in) and I only have two colonies on in-system planets, and one detected yet inactive JP.

[QUOTE=Gray Altoid;38712636]Are there any "milestones" that I could use when it comes to this? It's the year 2039 (14 years in) and I only have two colonies on in-system planets, and one detected yet inactive JP.[/QUOTE] For military engine technologies its'; Nuclear Thermal: 2000 km/s per 5000 tons Ion: 3000 km/s per 5000 tons Magneto-plasma: 4000 km/s per 5000 and so on. There's no real milestone for colonization, some prefer to spread out fast, some prefer fortifying home first before slowly expanding. [editline]5th December 2012[/editline] For example; in one of my games in the year of 2071 I have Mars terraformed & colonized, Luna colonized, and one single colony in a neighbouring system under terraforming progress. Large amounts of planetary defences but few combat ships.

I play where I hardly have a military (like maybe 1-2 fleets of 5 ships, and some simple fighters) with my research focus not being on weapons or defense that often (Every so often research weapons, but constantly research other stuff) [i]until[/i] I meet an enemy alien. So commonly I'll be in my home system for a good 50 years advancing in civil stuff, engine tech, sensors, and start leaving when resources get low. Then commonly I find aliens and go "SHIT SON THE MYTHS WERE RIGHT!!!" and get military into shape. I think it's more realistic (you don't develop weapons if you have no threats). Maybe it's just me.

That's a legit way to do it. I personally keep my forces up before first evidence of alien life, but everything is tailored against my own ships: sensor resolutions, expected detection ranges, that sort of thing. Y'know, in case of nonexistant pirates or defectors

[QUOTE=DarkMonkey;38743627]That's a legit way to do it. I personally keep my forces up before first evidence of alien life, but everything is tailored against my own ships: sensor resolutions, expected detection ranges, that sort of thing. Y'know, in case of nonexistant pirates or defectors[/QUOTE] Yeah that too. Say I am playing as a human population that decided beam weapons were the way to go. Instead of armor and shit, I research shields. Also later when I find aliens that use missiles (aka all of them? I've yet to see NPRs who don't use missiles) my anti-missile defence is beam based (gauss).

I've posted this in the official support forum, but I figure you guys would be faster at helping me resolve an issue. [quote]Recently installed Aurora on my new PC, and whenever the game performs the update every 5 days it gets stuck with the following errors: Running version 6.21 Error 3021 was generated by DAO. Recordset There is no actual post. Error 3020 was generated by DAO. Recordset The method Update or CancelUpdate is used without AddNew or Edit. If the writing of the errors vary it's because they were translated. I've tried using the portable version, but it returns the same errors. I'm able to use the normal and portable aurora on my laptop. The portable Aurora is located in my Dropbox. Edit: Oh right, both my PC and laptop are using 64-bit windows home. [/quote]

Possibly an issue with the system body pictures and whatnot. Go to the Aurora folder and drop the pictures of planets into the Planet folder.

Thinking about getting into this game, how long is the learning curve? Is it worse than Dwarf Fortress?

Quite a bit imo, there's no real proper manual for the game since the forums got fucked at some point, and the guides that are on it are a bit outdated. Back to my issue: I tried transferring the game folder from my laptop to my desktop, the saved game made on the laptop works fine, but creating a new game using the transferred game doesnt work. so I'm assuming it's an issue with the creation process itself.

Since I'm sort of a specialized wizard, I haven't touched Dwarf Fortress. But from the general impression it's players have, Aurora isn't as hard to learn. There's a button for pretty much everything, it's just about finding them and memorizing their locations.

I have absolutely no idea how this worked, but I just redownloaded the portable version and created a game without altering any parameters, I'll look further into the issue and update. Edit: Appears to be related to creating a pre-TN race... *sigh* I really want to play as one. Edit2: Missile bases. Conventional start with missile bases is causing it. Edit3: Damn, this start gave me less than 1000 in each mineral.. but something is off... [thumb]http://puu.sh/1zpZQ[/thumb]

[QUOTE=Twistshock;38776124]Quite a bit imo, there's no real proper manual for the game since the forums got fucked at some point, and the guides that are on it are a bit outdated. Back to my issue: I tried transferring the game folder from my laptop to my desktop, the saved game made on the laptop works fine, but creating a new game using the transferred game doesnt work. so I'm assuming it's an issue with the creation process itself.[/QUOTE] Yoooou're missing registry entries. Use the installer.

[QUOTE=scout1;38777865]Yoooou're missing registry entries. Use the installer.[/QUOTE] I did use the installer though, kept all original files as well. Should be pretty much the same as when I installed it on my old PC.

My biggest gripe with ship design is I really don't know if the ships I'm creating could realistically hold their own in an engagement or if they'd just get blown to pieces before they could even get into position. [editline]10th December 2012[/editline] I don't really have the experience to make that kind of judgement, I hope no scary aliens come a-knockin' [editline]10th December 2012[/editline] inb4 space pandas with the saudi-arabian flag

Well feel free to post your designs up here for us to look at. Also yeah Twistshock if you're doing a conventional start you need to SM the missile bases to have non-negative crew quarters. e: Also designing against your own tech holds true as a starting point as well. Can your sensors see your own ships at a reasonable range? Could you pick their engines up on passive sensors when you want to? Can your missiles outrun/hit/deal significant damage to them? Are your ships well-protected enough that that's a tough call to make? Can your antimissiles/beam PD take out your own missiles with any degree of success? Alien designs will be alien, yes, but a faster missile or a smaller ship just scales your effectiveness. Also make sure you can at the very least have enough fuel to get around your own home system comfortably.

This is currently my only armed ship design as I've not encountered aliens yet [quote]Rommel class Cruiser 4,000 tons 119 Crew 609.65 BP TCS 80 TH 120 EM 60 3000 km/s Armour 5-22 Shields 2-300 Sensors 6/6/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 18 Maint Life 1.02 Years MSP 95 AFR 128% IFR 1.8% 1YR 91 5YR 1366 Max Repair 180 MSP Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Spare Berths 2 240 EP Ion Drive (1) Power 240 Fuel Use 64% Signature 120 Exp 10% Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres Range 3.5 billion km (13 days at full power) Beta R300/288 Shields (1) Total Fuel Cost 12 Litres per hour (288 per day) 20cm C2 Ultraviolet Laser (2) Range 48,000km TS: 3000 km/s Power 10-2 RM 4 ROF 25 10 10 10 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 Particle Beam-3 (1) Range 48,000km TS: 3000 km/s Power 7-2 ROF 20 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 CIWS-80 (1x4) Range 1000 km TS: 8000 km/s ROF 5 Base 50% To Hit Fire Control S01 24-2000 H70 (1) Max Range: 48,000 km TS: 2000 km/s 79 58 38 17 0 0 0 0 0 0 Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor Technology PB-1 (2) Total Power Output 45 Armour 0 Exp 5% Thermal Sensor TH1-6 (1) Sensitivity 6 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 6m km EM Detection Sensor EM1-6 (1) Sensitivity 6 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 6m km This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes [/quote] Thinking of phasing them out for a Missile Cruiser once I get some decent missile tech.

I think it's a fairly good beam ship for Fast reactor tech. But yeah, missile cruisers are the way to go, especially against precursors and their PDC's that shit ridiculous amounts of size 1 missiles.

Good speed for ion drives, but that's a very very small amount of fuel for my taste, and a short deployment time. Since these are just meant for in-system defense I'm assuming that's not too bad, but something to keep in mind. Also you don't seem to have an active sensor.

What should I be aiming for when designing an active search sensor? I'm not too familiar with designing them so I don't know what minimum resolution I should pick or hull size or strength or anything. I realise that having a strong ensor that doesn't take up too much hull space is preferable, but I'd rather not overinvest in a massive, highly advanced active search sensor if I can have a cheaper, smaller one that's just as useful.

Well, the default of resolution 100 isn't too shabby, 5000 tons is a nice target size. Leaving it there would be just fine, or even tuning it down to the 4000 tons of your own ships. Range requirements for a beam ship are a bit different than for a missile boat, but at least a few million km if not more. Your lasers aren't particularly suited for point defense work and a CIWS has an active sensor integrated, so a resolution 1 sensor wouldn't do much for you besides tell you how many missiles are bearing down on you. A decent strategy is to have a variant leader design that sacrifices a weapon or two for a beefier sensor suite.

I was thinking of investing in a dedicated sensor ship, we'll see. Also how do I increase deployment time? That's one of the few things I haven't figured out yet. It seems all my ships have three months.

Top left corner of the class design window

This PC is being really annoying with Aurora... From: [quote]Tribal class Cruiser 255 tons 10 Crew 36.6 BP TCS 5.1 TH 0 EM 0 1 km/s Armour 1-3 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0 MSP 90 Max Repair 2 MSP Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Spare Berths 0 Fuel Capacity 50[/quote] To [quote]Tribal class Cruiser 3[/quote] When I add an engine (I'm not using this design, just highlighting the issue). Not sure if the numbers are fucked as well, or if reducing the amount of digits is a feature of 6.21

Choo choo, here comes the Soviet Diplomatic party. [IMG]http://i47.tinypic.com/r88shz.png[/IMG]

I fixed the issue I had... kinda embarrassing.... I had set "." to be both my decimal operator and seperator.

who else here surveys every planet in a system before moving to the next?

[QUOTE=viperfan7;39103027]who else here surveys every planet in a system before moving to the next?[/QUOTE] As someone that's experienced devastating Corundum Crunches, I never leave a single stone unturned.

well, I was bored so I graphed out using a surface graph the relationship between research bonus and research labs f(x,y) = (x*400)*((y*4/100)+1) replace the 400 with your current research rate, x with the amount of labs, and y with the bonus, remove the *4 if your using a non specialized scientist

Found this thread in the echo's of the past. Bumping it because I have recently gotten in to Aurora and it's amazing! I'm glad I found this game.