A Galactic Takeover: Lets Play Aurora 4x!

[Psionic Dog]

I feel there is insufficient interest in this ridiculously detailed game, so a 'Lets Play' is in order. Aurora 4x is generally called the Dwarf Fortress of 4x Games. This seems accurate. In most 4x games you explore, research the tech to unlock new units, and build colonies. In Aurora you research the theoretical tech required to research the customized applications that will form the basic component blocks of your ship designs. Like Dwarf Fortress, there is no set objective, beyond "Have fun" and "Have FUN."

You may enjoy the PC World review here. (http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,201821-order,4/description.html)

This play was run with Aurora 5.5. Some concepts are different in the latest version. I've started a new lets play with 6.21 here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=16911298#post16911298).

So, here we go!

This is the game creation screen. it gives such lovely options such as naming conventions, starting population, and the probability that the next jump point contains obsessive compulsive aliens who think the universe would be much tidier without any humans.
http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x184/sublightrun/Aurora%20LetsPlay/CreateGame.png

I suggest we go with a RNS Mantorian empire theme as tribute to David Weber's work, use Norse naming. Perhaps tweak the new alien generation up to a 40% generation chance for 90% strength aliens. More opportunities to conduct hostile take overs that way. Everything else could be left as is. Still, this being a 'Lets Play' votes to the contrary will be considered.

For your consideration, here are a few notes on ship combat, tactics, and weapon design.

Ships generally come in many varieties from slow and heavily armored, to fast and light. You know the drill: speed, armor, weapons. Pick any two or muddle all three. Between that and stealth, if you have an idea it can probably be built.

Weapons come in two general categories: Missiles and Beams. Missiles are tactically superior, strategically limited. Missiles have the longest range and flexibility of any other weapon system. However, they are also the only weapon system that can run out of amo, as every individual missile must be manufactured, stored, and transported.

Beam weapons come in a variety of flavors and have unlimited ammunition so long as power is supplied.

Lasers are the classic. Medium range. Decent rate of fire. Can be turret mounted for fast tracking speeds. They also inflict deep, narrow blows good at puncturing thin armor.

Rail Guns fire volleys of small shots, giving them the best damage per second potential of any beam weapon. However, they also short ranged, 'sandblast' armor rather than penetrate, and can't be turret mounted.

Plasma Canodades are basically large caliber canons that vomit an energetic quark mixture at encroaching targets. They are inexpensive to research, and deal the most damage per volley. However, they are also slow firing and over time do less total damage than lasers. These can't be turreted either.

Particle Beams are unique as the only beam weapon that doesn't have degrading damage with range. This makes them useful for long ranged sniping, but at short ranges are out performed by most everything. Like rail guns and plasma cannonades, particle beams can't be turreted.

Mesons are a special weapon. They are short ranged and never do more than minimal damage, but they also ignore armor and shielding. Mesons have the same rate of fire as lasers, and can be turreted. They are a popular choice for point defense batteries.

High Energy Microwaves are a jamming-like weapon that ignore armor and destroy only electronic sensors and fire control components. They are also short ranged and can be countered by spending extra to harden the electronic components in a ship, but prove vicious if they can get close to anything designed on the cheap. Microwaves are generally considered a situation weapon.

Gauss Canons are a short ranged weapon that only does minimal damage per shot, but once into the mid-tech level become the most rapidly firing weapon in the game. These are the only beam weapon not to require external power, but they tend to be a little bulkier. These weapons can be turret mounted, and also miniaturized at the cost of accuracy.
My planed tactic is to use Particle Beam welding Fast Attack craft to kite our foes supported by stealth cruisers armed with missiles for ranged support and gauss cannons for point defense. That is, unless anyone has some other plan.


Lastly, Below are a few screen shots of the game interface picked up from one of my other games.http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x184/sublightrun/Aurora%20LetsPlay/SystemView.png This is the main system map view of the solar system, zoomed out to show every asteroids and oort-cloud object.

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x184/sublightrun/Aurora%20LetsPlay/SystemZoomed.png And here is a zoomed in viewing of just the inner planets. You can see the sensor readings of hostile forces (red) and this factions own unit locations (yellow).

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x184/sublightrun/Aurora%20LetsPlay/ClassDesign.png One point I love about this game is the available customization of your fleet elements. This window shows the component break down in the class design window for a low-tech proposed orbital bombardment cruiser.

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x184/sublightrun/Aurora%20LetsPlay/PartDevelopment.png
Here is the component design window, currently showing a few of the options in beam fire control creation. "10,000 km range" was one of the researched theoretical technologies. Actually using the proposed beam fire control will would require first researching the custom 40-point project for this particular design.

I hope we all have some fun, but lets be prepared for fun (http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Losing). :smallsmile:

[Psionic Dog]

Some games contain paths. Some games contain multiple choices. Aurora is so open there's barely a trail, much less a railroad, in sight. As such I won't exactly stop and ask my (possibly none existent) audience what to do, but if anyone takes a shine to this thread and wants to see if something is possible just shout out.

If you want to see something named after you shout out as well. Every ship, officer, asteroid, etc can be renamed. I'm calling dibs on the humble position of Supreme Governor of Earth, but most anything and everything else is up for grabs.

The Aurora Start: Part 2 of 3

Step 1 of the New Game creation process is a simple form. I suppose some might find this 'simple' in the same way that the IRS 1040a tax form is 'short,' but it is pretty self explanatory and mashing the 'create game' button right away works just fine.

For this game the following options were changed:
Difficulty: 90% (computer opponents have a small penalty)
Non-Player Generation Chance: 40 (but we will see more of them)
Empire name: Solarian Empire
Empire Theme: RNS Mantor
Commander Theme: Norse
System Bodies & Jump Points pre-surveyed (we want to squash aliens, not spend the first years exploring our back yard)
Assign Starting Tech Automatically: NO.

*clicks create game*

Lets Take a look at our RAW empire Stats:
http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x184/sublightrun/Aurora%20LetsPlay/StartingPopulation.png
Not bad, 500 million survivors after the WorldWar3 and the resulting reconstruction, of which 7million+ are available for new jobs.

And now the science report:
http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x184/sublightrun/Aurora%20LetsPlay/StartingScience.png
GAHHH! We only have 3 starting scientists! That has to be one of the worst science starts I've ever seen. Scientists apply their research bonus to any project they're assigned to, and 4x their bonus to research in their specialization. In total there are 8 fields: Genetics, Constriction, Logistics, Defense, Energy Weapons, Missiles&Kinetics, Power&Propulsion, and Sensors. Genetics is fantasitc for long-term galactic colonization, but rather unimportant for any would-be galactic conquer currently.

Maybe Earth's mineral status will be more encouraging:
http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x184/sublightrun/Aurora%20LetsPlay/MineralReport.png
Thats... um, kind of bad. In the Techno-babble of Aurora's universe, the Trans-Newtonian elements are responsible for most everything necessary for reaching (and holding) the stars. There are little more than 10,000 tones in unmined reserves for four critical elements. We'll have shortages within the decade: new colonies are going to be essential earlier than usual with this game.

Now, Lets spend our research points: we've been awarded 120,000 of them at the start. Defense can be largely skipped for now since we have a specialized scientist to help catch us up, biology can be ignored. Looks like we need the basics of everything else, with an emphisis on the tech needed for the FAC Particle beam patrol craft.
Biology:
None.

Defensive Systems
High Density Durranium Armor

Construction & Production
+20% Research Rate
+20% Construction Rate
+20% Mining Rate

Logistics and Ground Combat
Engineering Brigade
Small Crew Quarters
Troop Transport Bay

Energy Weapons
Particle Beam Range 100,000 km
Particle Beam Range 150,000 km
Turret Tracking Overhead 10% per 2000 km/s
Turret Tracking Overhead 10% per 3000 km/s

Missiles and Kinetics
Gauss Cannon Velocity 2
Gauss Cannon Fire-Rate 2
Gauss Cannon Fire-Rate 3
Boat Bay
Hanger Deck

Power and Propulsion
Capacitor Recharge Rate 2
Fast Attack Craft Engine
Pebble-Bed Reactor
Nuclear Pulse Engine
Nuclear Pulse Missile Drive
Fuel Efficiency 0.9
Jump-Point Theory
Jump Drive Efficiency 3
Jump Drive Efficiency 4
Max Jump Squad Size: 3
Max Jump Exit Radius: 50 km

Sensors and Fire Control
Active Sensor Strength 12
Active Sensor Strength 16
EM Sensors 6
EM Sensors 8
Thermal Sensors 6
Gravity Scan Sensors
Base Beam Fire-Control Range 16,000 km
Base Beam Fire-Control Range 24,000 km
Base Beam Fire-Control Range 32,000 km
Base Beam Tracking Speed 2,000 km/s
Base Beam Tracking Speed 3,000 km/s

This leaves a little change to research specific ship components.

Now is probably a good time to mention sensors.
Sensors come in 3 types:
Passive EM sensors: These pick up the short-frequency emissions from active sensors, shields, and civilian populations. Good for locating civilian populations or fully powered military fleets. Not so good at finding anything under emissions control.

Passive Thermal Sensors: These pick up the Infrared emissions from ships under drive and from planetary industry. Not so good at finding anything powered down or moving under minimal power.

Passive Sensor detection range is (Sensor Sensitivity x Sensor Size x Emission Power) x 1,000 km.

Active Sensors are essential for gaining a target lock, and may out-range passive sensors for finding large objects with small signatures. Detection Range is (EM Sensitivity x Active Sensor Strength x Sensor Size) x sqrt(size resolution) x 10,000 km. If a target has a smaller size than the detection resolution, the actual detection range will be exponential smaller. That is, a target 1/3rd the resolution size will only be detected at 1/9th the rated distance.

To start, I've researched two Active sensor components: One that is size 2, resolution 1, max range 2.5 million km. The second is size 2, resolution 50, max range 18.1 million km. That should get us going for now.

Note: In Aurora each unit-size is roughly equivalent to 50 tonnes displacement.

Stealth technologies can reduce thermal and active sensor detection range.

Here are the planed ship classes for starters:

Cadmus class FAC Tender 8,800 tons 221 Crew 580.2 BP TCS 176 TH 100 EM 0
568 km/s JR 1-25(C) Armour 2-37 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/8/0/0 Damage Control Rating 5 PPV 0
Maint Life 3.6 Years MSP 206 AFR 123% IFR 1.7% 1YR 25 5YR 369 Max Repair 32 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 3000 tons

JC9K Commercial Jump Drive Max Ship Size 9000 tons Distance 25k km Squadron Size 1
Nuclear Pulse Engine E0.9 (1) Power 100 Fuel Use 9% Signature 100 Armour 0 Exp 1%
Fuel Capacity 250,000 Litres Range 568.0 billion km (11574 days at full power)

Active Search Sensor MR18-R50 (1) GPS 1600 Range 18.1m km Resolution 50
Civilian EM Detector (1) Sensitivity 8 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 8m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
This guy is built to carry a task force of 2x Medusa FAC and 1x Star Knight FSC. The Big guy is slow, but fuel efficent. The little guys are fast, but with shorter operational ranges.


Medusa class Fast Attack Craft 1,000 tons 111 Crew 142 BP TCS 20 TH 80 EM 0
4000 km/s Armour 2-8 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 5
Maint Life 10.95 Years MSP 89 AFR 8% IFR 0.1% 1YR 1 5YR 20 Max Repair 43 MSP

GB Nuclear Pulse Engine E90 (1) Power 80 Fuel Use 900% Signature 80 Armour 0 Exp 15%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres Range 10.0 billion km (28 days at full power)

Particle Beam-2 (1) Range 150,000km TS: 4000 km/s Power 5-2 ROF 15 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
Fire Control S03 96-3000 (1) Max Range: 192,000 km TS: 3000 km/s 95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
Small Pebble Bed Reactor (1) Total Power Output 3 Armour 0 Exp 5%

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Our primary long-ranged small, fast, combatant.


Star Knight class Fast Scout Craft 1,000 tons 84 Crew 157 BP TCS 20 TH 80 EM 0
4000 km/s Armour 1-8 Shields 0-0 Sensors 6/8/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 5.2
Maint Life 10.82 Years MSP 98 AFR 8% IFR 0.1% 1YR 2 5YR 23 Max Repair 32 MSP

GB Nuclear Pulse Engine E90 (1) Power 80 Fuel Use 900% Signature 80 Armour 0 Exp 15%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres Range 10.0 billion km (28 days at full power)

Single Gauss Cannon R2-67 Turret (1x3) Range 20,000km TS: 9000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 2 ROF 5 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S01.5 16-9000 (1) Max Range: 32,000 km TS: 9000 km/s 69 37 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Active Search Sensor MR2-R1 (1) GPS 32 Range 2.6m km Resolution 1
Civilian IR Detector (1) Sensitivity 6 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 6m km
Civilian EM Detector (1) Sensitivity 8 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 8m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
There wasn't enough room on the Medusa for sensors and Anti-Missile defense, so that stuff gets squeezed into a separate craft. The Guass cannon was shrunk from 300 tons down to 200 tons at a 33% accuracy penalty and then mounted in 50 tons of turret to gain tripple the base tracking speed. For targeting small, fast, missiles I call this a net gain.



Nike class Gravsurvey Ship 2,150 tons 211 Crew 374 BP TCS 43 TH 80 EM 0
1860 km/s JR 1-50 Armour 1-14 Shields 0-0 Sensors 6/8/2/0 Damage Control Rating 3 PPV 0
Maint Life 11.21 Years MSP 326 AFR 12% IFR 0.2% 1YR 5 5YR 71 Max Repair 100 MSP

J2200(1-50) Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 2200 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 1
Nuclear Pulse Engine E9 (2) Power 40 Fuel Use 90% Signature 40 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres Range 93.0 billion km (578 days at full power)

Civilian IR Detector (1) Sensitivity 6 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 6m km
Civilian EM Detector (1) Sensitivity 8 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 8m km
Gravitational Survey Sensors (2) 2 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
An outer-system jump-point search craft.


Sphynx class Jump Scout 2,100 tons 196 Crew 320.4 BP TCS 42 TH 80 EM 0
1904 km/s JR 1-50 Armour 2-14 Shields 0-0 Sensors 6/8/0/1 Damage Control Rating 3 PPV 0
Maint Life 12.25 Years MSP 286 AFR 11% IFR 0.2% 1YR 4 5YR 53 Max Repair 100 MSP

J2200(1-50) Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 2200 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 1
Nuclear Pulse Engine E9 (2) Power 40 Fuel Use 90% Signature 40 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres Range 95.2 billion km (578 days at full power)

Active Search Sensor MR18-R50 (1) GPS 1600 Range 18.1m km Resolution 50
Civilian IR Detector (1) Sensitivity 6 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 6m km
Civilian EM Detector (1) Sensitivity 8 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 8m km
Geological Survey Sensors (1) 1 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
A noisy and nosy inner system search craft to look for valuable real estate and any alien squatters who think they own said valuable territory.



Gryphon class Freighter 29,950 tons 146 Crew 289.8 BP TCS 599 TH 300 EM 0
500 km/s Armour 1-85 Shields 0-0 Sensors 6/8/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
MSP 6 Max Repair 25 MSP
Cargo 25000 Cargo Handling Multiplier 5

Nuclear Pulse Engine E0.9 (3) Power 100 Fuel Use 9% Signature 100 Armour 0 Exp 1%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres Range 66.7 billion km (1543 days at full power)

Civilian IR Detector (1) Sensitivity 6 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 6m km
Civilian EM Detector (1) Sensitivity 8 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 8m km

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
Collonization and expansion will be important with our mineral troubles. Something's going to have to move around our equipment.



Homer class Colony Ship 6,850 tons 78 Crew 316.4 BP TCS 137 TH 100 EM 0
729 km/s Armour 1-32 Shields 0-0 Sensors 6/8/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
MSP 29 Max Repair 25 MSP
Colonists 20000

Nuclear Pulse Engine E0.9 (1) Power 100 Fuel Use 9% Signature 100 Armour 0 Exp 1%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres Range 145.8 billion km (2314 days at full power)

Civilian IR Detector (1) Sensitivity 6 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 6m km
Civilian EM Detector (1) Sensitivity 8 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 8m km

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
Cryogenics transportation for those who prefer cheap fare.



Edward Saganami class Planetary Defence Centre 8,650 tons 107 Crew 303 BP TCS 173 TH 0 EM 0
Armour 6-37 Sensors 1/32 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 96
Troop Capacity: 1 Battalion Magazine 96

ICBM Silo (4) Missile Size 24 Rate of Fire 43200
ICBM Launch Control (1) Range 50k km Resolution 50

Active Search Sensor MR18-R50 (1) GPS 1600 Range 18.1m km Resolution 50


This design is classed as a Planetary Defence Centre and can be pre-fabricated in 4 sections
An obsolete relic from the 3rd war. Er, I sort of spent the entire research budget on ship components, but at least this imposing bunker will make our naive population sleep better at night.

Don't like the designs? Think we need something smaller, bigger, or with more guns? Think Fusion Missile Warheads should be a research priority? This Govener of Earth has already decided that a new Military Academy to train more scientists is essential, but beyond that anything could happen.

[Trekkin]

This is...very detailed. Having read through part of the wiki, I'm fairly confident I won't be justified in posting anything related to the game for a while, but I'll be watching with interest.

[James the Dark]

It might not be the best idea to run with FACs as your main military craft. After all, they break down at the drop of a hat... anybody's hat... and burn through fuel like crazy. You'll find soon enough that Sorium is THE determining factor for what solar systems get colonized.

I'd go for something a bit larger in displacement, using Military Engines. Also, try to keep your military designs to a minimum, because repairs end up costing the bomb, and a breakdown is the last thing you need when you're trying to scope the asteroids in a system. Even if you lose out a bit in keeping your design civilian, it might just be worth it to trim the hassle.

[Psionic Dog]

For Civilian Designs: agreed, but currently the only military designs that could be made civilian are the Sphynx jump-scouts. Since we're missing a few tech pieces to make them civilian, I'll stick with the Sphynx for now, and focus the research efforts on designing civilian-class active sensor and a small civilian-class jump drive for use in our 2nd generation jump-scouts. (FYI: Civilian designs never suffer maintenance trouble, which is extremely useful for axillary support.)

I've actually had a lot of luck with FAC in the past. They only break down if you are cheap and skip out on the engineering compartment (I haven't). While they do die quick if caught by enemy fire they also tend to be small and fast enough to avoid a lot of that. Fuel... I'll give you. That's why the plan calls for using Cadmus class FAC Tenders to ferry them around. As a bonus, supposedly any ship in a hanger can gain fleet training without burning fuel.

FAC History for the unfamiliar:
For those not familiar with Aurora there are 4 base ship engine classes.
Military Engines are the standard against which all else are compared.
Civilian Engines have 2.5x the power at 5x normal size and 10% fuel consumption. Excellent for deep space missions where endurance is more important than speed.
FAC Engines have 2x thrust, 1,000% fuel consumption, and are limited to only 1-engine on a ship.
Fighter Engines have (I think) 80% thrust, 20% size, and 10,000% fuel consumption.

Fighters are so fuel inefficient that their endurance is measured in hours and can only be operated within relatively close range of a dedicated base or carrier. They get used as expendable scouts and for extended missile delivery. They are caped at 500 tons maximum size.

FAC are a popular system-defense craft. They usually have enough range to travel from say, Earth to Uranus and back: although some design them for extra fuel and others save space by cutting fuel storage even further. Sending them out to and through a local jump point and on to another star systems generally requires either a large carrier or a tanker escort.

Most FAC tend to be in the 750-1,000 ton range because they are limited to only one engine and vessels 1,000 tons or smaller don't require the extra space for a bridge. Ours are on the large end of the scale.

In my last Aurora 4x game I used the tanker escort option and only moved squadrons for periodic maintenance and planed fleet offensives. To save fuel for the initial crew training I built carbon-copy Corvettes that used standard military engines, and then refitted them with the FAC engine once they mastered basic fleet maneuverings.

Oh yah, if your ships haven't had task-force maneuvering training they suffer time penalties for responding to orders. In battle the 20seconds an inexperienced crew might spends fumbling before responding to simple orders like "open fire" or "retreat" can be problematic in an even fight.

I suppose the current military plan relies more on finesse than brute force, so designing heavy wall-of-battle cruisers for the times when finesse struggles might be a wise research and development plan.

The Aurora Start: Part 3 of 3

The final stage of setup for an Aurora game is starting fleet creation. Anyone wishing to build everything directly their self can skip this option, but since we want to pacify space aliens sooner rather than later we'll be taking up the games generous offer to spawn free ships. This is done using the System Master mode to access the Fast Order of Battle creation shown below.

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x184/sublightrun/Aurora%20LetsPlay/FastFleet.png

For our game I've awarded ourselves:
10x Edward Saganami class Planetary Defence Centres,
5x Fast Attack squads each with 2x Medusas and 1x Star Knight
3x Cadmus class FAC Tenders for offensives, training, and FAC squad relocation,
4x Nike class Gravsurvey Ships for mapping
2x Sphynx class Jump Scout for early system surveys
2x Gryphon class Freighter

And, there you have it. Game creation and set up is done. :smallsmile:
You know its a detailed game when you need 3 posts just for set up.

Here's my proposed breakdown of our fleet organization:
http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x184/sublightrun/Aurora%20LetsPlay/FleetOrg.png

And here I've appointed myself Governor of Earth from the Officers window.
http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x184/sublightrun/Aurora%20LetsPlay/Leadership.png


I'll be taking most of the upcoming week off from this project for assorted RL work and ThanksGiving (U.S. holiday). The next update will probably be Friday, assuming I can stop siblings from dragging me off to Black Friday shopping events.

But, once the game does start, then what?

Initial Research Priorities currently look to be:
>A smaller Civilian Jump-Drive for Jump-scouts Vs2
>A size one civilian active sensor for our designated bait jump-scouts.
>Shields for Beam Cruisers? Missile tech for missile cruisers? Civilian CIWS missile defense?

Initial Construction Priorities currently appear to be:
>A new Militiary academy to train even more officers and scientists.
>Infastructure for off-planet colonies
>Mass Drivers for automated mineral shipping
> Mines? Automated Mines? A new shipyard? Expanding Existing shipyards?

[psilontech]

I know absolutely nothing of this game and as such will be unable to really give suggestions at this point in time.

That said, I'm looking forward to the rest of your LP!

[James the Dark]

One thing which will have to happen at some point is transferring Earth's mines into Auto Mines, because those at least are useful when you drop them on Asteroid 283 (random example) to mine up those resources on uninhabitable rocks. Definitely get another academy up and going, though. I've never seen a 3 scientist start before. That's just rough.

[Psionic Dog]

Huh, I seem to have unexpectedly acquired some free time. So... extra early update.

First: Two new Aurora Concepts: Colonies and Jump Transit
Colonies:
In Aurora, Humans are not limited to earth, but can live just about anywhere. The habitability of any object is determined by gravity, temperature, and atmosphere.

Gravity Check: If an object is within racial gravitational tolerances, humans can live there. If not, they can't. By normal game default tolerance is ±70% home world, or anything from 0.3G to 1.7G. This means within the Solar System Earth, Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Titan permit human settlement.

Infrastructure Cost: Living on a planet does not assure prosperity. Dumping a cruse liner full of humans onto Venus without support is possible, but will quickly result in lots of char-grilled HumanBurgers. Infrastructure reflects all the pressure domes, oxygen generators, green-houses or industrial air-conditioning required for someone to function productively. The Infrastructure cost is the number of 2500 ton units required to support 10,000 colonists without overcrowding.

Temperature: Humans in Aurora live ideally at 22°C and can survive unassisted in climates of ±22°. Other conditions have an infrastructure cost of ∆T/Tolerance. For example, Titan (-178°C) has a cost of: (0 - -178)/22=8.09. Mercury has a cost of: (427 - 44)/22=17.41

Atmosphere: Humans in Aurora thrive at a maximum pressure of 4.0 atm. I'm not sure of the exact formula, but I think higher pressures have a cost of (Presure - Pmax)/2. As a result Venus has an even higher colonization cost than mercury. In addition, any planet that lacks a breathable atmosphere (no poisonous gases, O2 within ±50% earth, O2 < 30% total) has a minimal colonization cost of 2.

Only the highest cost applies: multiple penalties don't stack.

Genetic Engineering tech can be used to convert one species to another, engineered species with different tolerances.

Jump Transit:

Intersteller travel functions by instantaneous jump-point transition. A good literary example of this FTL form is described in Mote in God's Eye. Basically, at certain points of gravitational equilibrium a worm-hole potential exists directly connecting the points.

Jump Gates: These are large structures similar to those proposed by John Ringo in Live Free or Die. In Aurora these aren't physical structures but rather a careful gravitational manipulation permanently stabilizing a jump-point worm-hole so any ship can pass through it. While this allows any ship of any size to travel, the stabilization process is slow and 'any' includes enemy forces too. We currently don't have this technology, but could easily research it.

Jump Drives: These massive engines allow a ship to stabilize a jump point long enough to pass through. Small engines are limited to a single ship, but large drives can extend the effect to allow multiple smaller vessels to pass through. In the latter case, the jump-ship may optional stay behind. A network of large Jump-ships can replicate a mobile, personal, gate network.

Standard Jumps: The process of using a jump gate or massed jump drive to skip from one system to another. The process is somewhat disorienting to crew and very disorienting to electronics: scrambling all sensors for a short time. If there are any defenders waiting on the far side, they'll probably get to shoot first, and possibly second and third too.

Squadron Jumps: Similar to a standard jump, but only done with the assistance of a jump-ship, and limited in the number of ships that can be jumped together. This focused jump causes ships to randomly emerge a short distance away from the jump point, and with a significantly reduced sensor blindness delay. Good for attacking a defended jump point. Our tech currently allows squadron jumps of up to 3 ships (including the jump ship) with an emergence range of up to 50,000 km away from the jump point.

Due to stability issues, Military-Class Jump-Drives can only transit ships with military-class engines, and ships with Commercial Jump-Drives can only transit ships with comerical-class engines.

Jump-Drive applied tech is unique in being exponential in application. A proposed jump twice as large is four times as expensive, both for production and research. This makes tiny drives stupidly cheap, but large drives more costly than many theoretical studies. For our tech, commercial drives support ships 7.5x larger for a given cost, but are 33% bulkier.

To the Stars

And now, we begin.
First, research projects. Our Propulsion specialist has been asked to design a commercial jump drive half the size of that used by the FAC tender for use in scouting. The other two were assigned to produce a civilian-rated active sensor and a cheap civilian-compatable anti-missile CIWS. With twenty research labs split among just three scientists working on application rather than theory, results should be completed in just two months, tops. Or, as our confident propulsion expert said of his task "5 business days."

Next, minerals. Most critical are Neutronium and Corundium. Neutronium will be the first to get mined out, and Corundium will both follow shortly also is required to build new mines. According to the Geologists, only two places have both of these minerals together besides Earth: Astroid #143... and Titan. Orders were written to for our freighters to deliver 14 of our starting 80 automated mines to Astroid #143. 14 is enough to deplete the important minerals within 10 years. Each Gryphon is large enough to move an entire mine with one trip, so this action will take seven round trips each for our current two.

Titan is a juicy target. Amazingly enough, Titan has every mineral in greater quantities than Earth. Granted, a few of those will be difficult to extract, but it is still a valuable find. It is also collonizable. Building a new automated mine has a build cost of 240, with which we could build a normal mine plus 60 units of infrastructure. 60 units of infrastructure will support 74,000 colonists on Titan, and Mines require 50,000 colonists to operate. Since colonists will work in agriculture, maintenance, and service industries we won't quite break even. However, Civilian shipping is usually quick to start up and happy not only to sell infrastructure directly to any new colony, but also to pay us taxes for the privilege.

An in-system colony would be nice to have, and while Mars is cheaper to colonize, I'm afraid Mars has no reported minerals in this game.

On the industrial side starting production is as follows:
{table]Item|%Capacity|Completion Date
1 Military Academy|45|Nov 30, 2025
Convert 20 Mines>Automated|25|Jan 22, 2027
3 Mass Drivers|25|Aug 13, 2025
100 Infrastructure|5|Sep 8, 2025[/table]

Once the military Academy is finished I'm thinking new shipyards. We currently have the following shipyards:
40,000 ton capacity commercial. 1-slipway. Tooled for Gryphon Freighters.
9,000 ton capacity military. 3-slipways. Tooled for Cadmus FAC tenders.
8,000 ton capacity military. 2-slipways. Tooled for Homer Colony Ships.
8,000 ton capacity military. 1-slipway. No class assigned.

We ought to have a 2nd comercial shipyard, and it seems inefficient to build FAC in the current military yards, so a dedicated FAC yard with lots of slipways but low capacity would be nice.

To take advantage our impressive starting military capacity we need new designs. We're short on a lot of tech, but I think we can mange an Escort Curser for fleet Anti-Missile Defense. maybe...

Wayfarer class Escort Cruiser 4,800 tons 351 Crew 613.4 BP TCS 96 TH 240 EM 0
2500 km/s Armour 4-25 Shields 0-0 Sensors 6/8/0/0 Damage Control Rating 4 PPV 31.2
Maint Life 7.28 Years MSP 319 AFR 46% IFR 0.6% 1YR 11 5YR 158 Max Repair 32 MSP

Nuclear Pulse Engine E9 (6) Power 40 Fuel Use 90% Signature 40 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres Range 41.7 billion km (192 days at full power)

Single Gauss Cannon R2-67 Turret (6x3) Range 20,000km TS: 9000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 2 ROF 5 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S01.5 16-9000 (3) Max Range: 32,000 km TS: 9000 km/s 69 37 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Active Search Sensor MR2-R1 (1) GPS 32 Range 2.6m km Resolution 1
Civilian IR Detector (1) Sensitivity 6 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 6m km
Civilian EM Detector (1) Sensitivity 8 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 8m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

The Wayfarer is targeted toward eventual 5,000 ton Military-Jump capability. Larger Jump engines are exponential more expensive, smaller are exponentially cheaper. The Wayfarer is capable of firing over 200 rounds per minute and can simultaneously engage up to three missile volleys.

Just a proposal.
Last few things: Orders issued to our Nike scouts to check out the 4 nearest jump points, and a Geological Survey team was formed. The preliminary scan was an orbital survey, and ground crews frequently find extra deposits. Hopefully they'll find more than one new deposit before giving up.

*clicks advance 5-days*

News Report:
January 5, 2025: Nike Scout reports that Jump Point #2 links to Barnard's Star.

Assorted Screen Shots:
http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x184/sublightrun/Aurora%20LetsPlay/FirstCollony.png
The Collonizable Planet List for Sol, with reported minerals for Titan.

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x184/sublightrun/Aurora%20LetsPlay/GivingOrders.png
Order dispatch given to the Freighters.

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x184/sublightrun/Aurora%20LetsPlay/GO.png
The Sol System Map. The yellow lines signify ship motion during the last time segment.

[Thorcrest]

I must say that I love the complexity of this game, your posting this has made me aware of it's existence, and I decided to install the game despite the fact that I am in the process of writing several essays.

Well done, I will be keeping an eye on this...

On a game related note, it appears my monitor resolution is not quite large enough to display the enitre game (part of the side bar menus are not visible. Is there anyway I can fix that?

[James the Dark]

Are you running Fling Outposts?
(Fling Outposts being only bothering to terraform the gems of a system and then having all other minable bodies hurl their juicy TransNewtonians at them via Mass Drivers.)
While it takes a bit to get them started, it could be a solution to your shortages, and once the body's gotten mined up, you can just move them to the next target. Also, be aggressive before you become a two system species: The last thing you want is a Civilian Mining Colony dropping on your precious asteroid and robbing you of valuable minerals.
Definitely built a dedicated Point Defense ship, though. I use PDMs, but mostly because I can't get other point defense devices to work properly. Saved my ass against those arrogant space-seals.

[Psionic Dog]

:smallcool: I have to confess I have an ulterior motive for this Lets Play. The game has primitive multiplayer support. Aurora 4x Multiplayer isn't fully autonomous and requires some arbitration by a designated System Master (SM), but this *is* primarily a RP forum where people are already familiar SMs DMs and the like...


@Thorcrest on resolution:
There is an option labeled "Reduced Size Display" or some such in one of the menus of the main 'window' (the one that is nothing but a floating menu bar). My screen isn't large enough to display the default size either, so have to make use of that option too.

@James
Good point. In past games I've had the cash to outright buy civilian mining complex production, but that might not be possible in this high-powererd start. I'll check the balance on the next update and see if we can afford to purchase civilian construction or if we'll need to preemptively make government claim to the best asteroids.

[Thorcrest]

@Thorcrest on resolution:
There is an option labeled "Reduced Size Display" or some such in one of the menus of the main 'window' (the one that is nothing but a floating menu bar). My screen isn't large enough to display the default size either, so have to make use of that option too.

I found a "Reduced Height Windows" Option under the Games Parameters menu, but it did not actually appear to do anything after I selected it...

I guess I will simply have to play on my home computer rather than my laptop...

EDIT: I was wrong, it helps with all things except the map... missing a couple boxes on the display options, is that a big deal?

[Psionic Dog]

It could be that the System map window needs to be closed and reopened before the the size change takes effect. If the missing objects haven't appeared in any of my screen shots then I'm missing them too but never noticed.

The First Month...

January 5th: 2025
>Survey Report: GV Nike 002 transits Jump Point #2, and emerges at Barnard's Star. A rich collection of planets and astroids found, but nothing hospitable.
>Production on our first Wayferrer Escort Cruiser started. Expansion for a second slipway ordered for our two single-slipway shipyards.

January 6th: 2025
>Survey Report: GV Nike 001 transits Jump Point #1, and emerges at Teegardens Star. System contains a planet with Oxygen that is only a little colder than Mars. Promising. JSC Sphynx 001 ordered to conduct geological survey of system.
>Research Completed on commercial scout-class Jump-Drive. Scientist instructed to Implosion-Fusion Warhead theory for missile technology.

January 12th: 2025
>Survey Report: GV Nike 003 transits Jump Point #3 and emerges in Wolf 359. No potential colony sites.
>Survey Report: GV Nike 004 transits Jump Point #4 and emerges in Proxima Centauri. One planet shown to be slightly more habitable than Mars. JSC Sphynx 002 ordered to conduct geological survey of system.

February 3rd: 2025
>Research completed on the civilian-rated active sensor.

New Aurora Concept: Wealth
Everything costs cash. For construction, the cash cost is proportional to the total number of Transnewtonian minerals consumed. Like real life, the empire can go into debt, print money, etc. Similar to real life, this causes production problems, political unrest, and other troubles that in the end will slow production until the empire returns to the black. We'll try to avoid that.

Now that we've gotten through the first month's production, lets see how the treasury looks:
http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x184/sublightrun/Aurora%20LetsPlay/Finance1.png
This shows the current treasure and balance sheet in millions of NWC (new world currency) credits. Racial Per Capita income is slightly mislabeled, and reflects the average number of MegaCredits taxed per million population. The treasury stood at 20,000 mega-credits on the dawn of our galactic conquest, and we appear to be running a 117 MC monthly deficit. Life's good, for now, but unless the cash-flow improves we'll have to cut expenses in about 10 years. Hopefully we'll be collecting tribute and the reaping the spoils of war by then.

Word from Finance shows some signs of concern, but nothing urgent. It would be nice to tax civilian space production, but having to buy back civilian mining colony production isn't in the finances. So, on the advice of James the Dark, the empire has preemptively made claim to the six most valuable locations after Astroid #143 and Titan. Titan has all the minerals we'll need for 100 years, but with the accessibility of Corbomite, Tritanium, Boronide, Mercassium, and Vendarite available at less than 40% efficiency mineral shortages could still occur.

Claimed Are:
>Comet #1, by virtue of 29 kTons of high-accessible Corbomite.
>Comet #2 and Astroids #85: together hold 10 kTons of high-accessibility Mercassium.
Both Comets are currently just outside Saturn's orbit, traveling inward.
>Astroid #107: The only location besides astroid #143 to contain 2kTons+ of high accessibility Boronide. We're lucky this is one of the least important minerals.
>Oberon: This gas-giant moon has 100 years worth of high-accessibility Tritanium and Venarite.
>Astroid #362. Located out past the orbit of Pluto I hope we never need to mine this distant object, but it does hold several rich, accessible deposits of scarce minerals as an emergency reserve.

If James the Dark, or anyone else, if you would like one of these astroids or comets (or one of the civilian administrators put in charge of the object) named after you just say the word.

The next order of business is a new research project for our local Defense specialist. We could put him to work on a missile technology, or we could let him work in his specialty on improved shielding technology, lighter armor, or reduced thermal emissions.

Finally, here's our Galactic Jump-Map as things currently stand.
http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x184/sublightrun/Aurora%20LetsPlay/GalacticMap1.png
Small blue-circles signify planets with a breathable atmosphere. So far, only earth.
Small cyan circles signify Mars-like planets or moons.
Large Orange rings signify the existance of unexplored jump-points. The Sol system has 1 remaining unexplored jump point, as clarified by the small orange circle.
Large Red rings indicate that some potential jump-point locations have not yet been surveyed.

[velosi]

Okay so i've downloaded and started playing!

I am struggling with a few things though and wondered if you could help me,

first - how did you get ships at teh start of a game? I seem to have to build them and dont get one to start with.

Secondly HOW THE HELL DO I MOVE MY SHIPS :smallfurious: I can't seem to move them to survey anything let alone jump points and i can't even see jump points on my system map, im so confused.

[Asheram]

Good God, I've used ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems which are easier to use than this!

If you ever want a management job in logistics, just show them this game and say that you play it for fun.

[James the Dark]

I recommend shields, and quickly. As much as a couple layers of armor can do to keep your ass from death, a shield is that much better, because you don't need to repair it unless it gets criticaled. A good rule of thumb is one shield per 2,000 tonnes of ship, so your FACs would only have one.

And I can't recommend highly enough that you start putting together some long range, long duration missile cruisers to park over your planets. Even a 9,000 tonner with a couple of Size 5 launchers can make a dramatic point to anybody who thinks they can invade your planet without consequence. Lasers are good weapons, yeah, but compared to missiles, they've got no range at all.

Velosi: You get starter ships using the Fast Order of Battle system, which frankly has me a bit confounded as well. Try looking in the forums for the game. They talk about this stuff all the time. And you move ships by moving them from the Shipyard TaskGroup from the TaskGroup file (it looks like a star destroyer), forming them into their own taskgroup based on your needs, then giving orders to the whole task group.

And to all that might not realize it: You have to manually assign an Admiral to your navy, otherwise you'll have massive training problems. This is done by the Personnel screen as Civilian Administration is, but you actually have to search for the naval HQ.

[Psionic Dog]

Good God, I've used ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems which are easier to use than this!

If you ever want a management job in logistics, just show them this game and say that you play it for fun.

Convincing the US government to pay for my Masters in either Logistics or Robotics is my current 'Plan B' ^^


@Everyone else:

To move ships, go to 'Task Groups' Window, shown again below.
http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x184/sublightrun/Aurora%20LetsPlay/FleetOrg.png
Step 1: Create a new Task Group.
Step 2: If the new Task Group wasn't created with the ship grouping you wish to move, go to the 'Special Orders/Organizations' tab. In the Lower Right there should be an option for switching ships between task groups at the same location.
Step 2b: For automatic orders use the Primary/Secondary special Orders option at left in said tab. For conditional orders see options at top of said tab. Example: the Jump Scouts for this Let's Play were given the primary special orders 'Survey nearest Planet or Moon.' They'll give HQ notice whenever there are no more planets/moons to survey in their stationed star system.
Step 3: Switch to the 'Task Group Orders' tab.
Select the destination from the options in the left listing, and then the action you wish to perform there. For example, 'move to' or 'survey'.

To create ships, enter SM mode from the main floating tool-bar.
Select 'Fast Order of Battle' from the System Master options menu.
This should bring up the menu below:
http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x184/sublightrun/Aurora%20LetsPlay/FastFleet.png
From this window, any preexisting design that has been created and Locked (finalized) may be added to any preexisting task group.

Jump Points:
Jump Points are generally located somewhere outside the orbit of Saturn, so a zoomed-in view might not show them. Potential jump points are shown as hollow white rings, and need to be surveyed by a ship equipped with a Gravitational Sensor to see if a jump point exists there or not.

Other Reasons for not seeing Jump Points:
Survey Location display has been turned off in the display options.
The 'Jump Theory' technology has not been researched.

Hope this helps. :smallsmile:

If not, see the Aurora 4x forum (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php). I go by 'Sublight' over there.

[velosi]

okay, so got my ships moving, i still dont get how to survey things though?

[Psionic Dog]

Aurora Tutorials (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?PHPSESSID=db496779e5a4b6913be52d042f4d1d c2&board=101.0)
The tutorials are a few versions out of date, and I'll do my best to cover everything eventually here: but I'd still recommend that anyone trying out Aurora for his/herself read through it at some point.

The learning curve for this game isn't quite as steep as Dwarf Fortress's, but it is every bit as high.

Only ships containing one or more Geological Survey Sensors can survey system bodies like planets and asteroids. Only ships containing one or more Gravitational Survey Sensors can survey jump point survey locations. Having all locations already surveyed might be another reason for not seeing options.

New Concept Introduced: Combat Damage
Damage in Aurora is best described as anti-matter Tetris.

All ships have one or more layers of armor, expressed as [Layers]x[width].
The Medusa class Fast Attack Craft has 2x8 armor, or 16 armor boxes layed out as follows:
{table] _|_|_|_|_|_|_|_
_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_[/table]

Weapons generate a damage in one of the three patterns shown below: the missile damage pattern on left, standard damage pattern center, lazer damage pattern right. Patterns only show first 9-12 damage points, but will continue to expand according to pattern for more powerful attacks.

{table]1|2|3|5|7|10|_|1|2|3|_|5|1|4
|4|6|8|11| | |6|4|5| |8|2|7
| |9|12| | | | 9|7|8| | |3|
| | | | | | |12|10|11| | |6|
| | | | | | | | | | | |9| [/table]

Weapon damage is randomly centered over the armor (damage wrapping applies) and drops down, annihilating armor point for point. Any damage that manages to fall completely through the armor begins destroying vital ship components.

If 2-points of damage leaks through the armor to strike a 2-HitToKill component, the component is destroyed. If the same 2-points strike a 1-HitToKill component, 1 point of damage leaks over to strike some other system. If 2-points strike a 3-HitToKill component, then there is a 2/3 chance that the component will be destroyed.

Shields cancel damage at the start. If a 9-damage attack hits a ship with strength 12 shields, the shields are reduced to strength 3, but no damage hits the ship. If a second 9-damage attack his the ship, 3 damage is blocked and a 6-damage block is applied to the ship. Shields regenerate slowly over time, and are most useful when absorbing small sporadic attacks, or when buffering against deep-penetration lasers.

Most times, armor is better for surviving a single battle, while shields are better for surviving a war.


• • • • •

Biannual Counsel Conquest Report
Citizens of the glorious conquest, our exploration and subjection of the known space goes on as planed, but with few points of immediate interest or concern. After our last meeting, our resident Defense specialist was instructed to begin work on Beta shielding. Beta shielding should provide 50% greater strength per ton than prototype Alpha shield technology already known.

Events for the last six months have been as follows:

28th February 2025 04:00:01,Sol,A team on Earth led by BlÊingr Styrbjˆrnson has completed research into CIWS-120. Ordered to begin work on improved missile reloading techniques.
1st March 2025 04:00:01,Teegardens Star,Minerals Discovered on Teegardens Star-A IV - Moon 1: Vendarite 170,569 (0.7)
28th March 2025 04:00:01,Proxima Centauri,Minerals Discovered on Proxima Centauri-A II: Duranium 60,940,800 (0.1) Corbomite 24,206,400 (0.1) Tritanium 40,449,600 (0.1) Boronide 99,201,600 (1) Mercassium 138,297,600 (0.1)
28th March 2025 04:00:01,Sol,NÊnniR Hj·lmgrÌmrson has joined your naval officer corps. Initiative 595 Logistics 10%: Promotion Score 323
28th May 2025 04:00:01,Sol,M˝r M·nison has joined your scientific establishment. Research (Defensive Systems) 15% Administration Rating 4: Promotion Score 0
28th June 2025 04:00:01,Unknown,Through training or experience, Captain (JG) Rambi Darrison has increased his Training Bonus to 25
28th June 2025 04:00:01,Sol,The VÌgf˙ss Harakn˙trson Geology Team does not believe any new mineral deposits can be found by the further geological survey of Earth
28th June 2025 04:00:01,Unknown,Due to increase in the skill of one or more of its members, the rating of the VÌgf˙ss Harakn˙trson Geology Team has increased to 85
28th June 2025 04:00:01,Sol,New deposits of Duranium have been found on Earth by the VÌgf˙ss Harakn˙trson Geology Team, The total amount available has increased from 86983.52 to 286983.5234 tons.

While we are disappointed that our resident Geology Team has given up after finding a single find, discovering 200,000 tons of highly critical Duranium is one of the greatest possible single-finds they could have made. Speaking of geology, we now have a dozen automated mines functioning on asteroid #143. It will be nearly a year before a first colony ships are completed, so some question remains on if we should begin shipping colony infrastructure to Titan, or if additional automated mines should be shipped out until our colony ships are completed. Also for consideration is the next destination for our ground survey crew. Searching a valuable object could produce useful results faster, but since their skills will improve with each find ordering them to examine less important locations first could improve prospects in the long run.


Nothing particularly screen-shot worthy has occured this time, but for reference here is a shot of the Task-Force special-orders tab and also a system view of one of the newly discovered star systems.
http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x184/sublightrun/Aurora%20LetsPlay/SpecialOrders.png
The Special Orders window.

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x184/sublightrun/Aurora%20LetsPlay/Teegarden.png
Teegardens Star. The white rings are possible jump points flagged as Survey Locations. The white circles are surveyed locations where no jump point was found.

[velosi]

Good news! Not only have I got ships working, I have them exploring jump points! Doubled up a jump destroyer and a jump gravship to explore them :)

Now colonies and mines on asteroids / titan is next to sort out. Getting there - also scientists? I just have 2! You thought 3 was bad, 2! And they are both 10%'s with 10 labs each, awful!

[James the Dark]

A slightly cheaty way of getting more of them is to, when generating the galaxy, increase your initial population. Even going from 500m to 1b is enough to drop a lot more officers, scientists included, into your lap.

[Mistral]

I'm not sure, but initial governments may also alter it, though that might just be standard variation. It definitely alters the defaults for initial shipyards, labs, and the like.

[Psionic Dog]

Most of the alternate government types appear weaker than the 'Player Government' type, but since the goverenment type does change a lot of unmodifiable variables such as xeno-language translation skill some might give a science boast.

I think starting officers is based on the number of starting Military Academies: I haven't noticed a difference in total officers between my 300m and 500m starts. I'd guess that massive starting populations award a 2nd academy, but not having ever tried a 501m+ start before I can't be sure.

November 21st, 2025
Welcome, Ladies, Gentlemen, and resident Aliens, to the Grand Opening of The 2nd Academy of Earth. The new academy will double the training rate of both officers and enlisted crew, to ensure a skilled future.

We've seen a few minor triumphs over the past months, including the launch of our first new ship since the start, a Gryphon freighter. There have also been a few minor setbacks, including the first reported maintenance failure: easily repaired. After completing our first three mass drives industry began constructing a new navel shipyard for our FAC, and the completion of our military academy frees up even greater opportunities for consideration. Should the industry be invested in rush completion of existing projects? Do we want financial institutions to improve our cash flow? Is a new commercial shipyard requested to free our military yards for military concerns?

Event Log:
8th July 2025 04:00:01,Sol,Construction of Infrastructure completed on Earth
26th July 2025 22:00:01,Sol,Dept. Transport has completed orders
5th August 2025 10:00:01,Unknown,As a result of experience gained in the performance of his duties, Captain (JG) RaskulfR Kappison has increased his Survey Bonus to 1%
10th August 2025 10:00:01,Sol,Gryphon 003 (Gryphon class) built on Earth and assigned to Shipyard TG
10th August 2025 10:00:01,Sol,1st FAC Ferry has completed orders
10th August 2025 10:00:01,Sol,VÌgf˙ss Harakn˙trson Geology Team dropped off on Sol-A Comet #2
10th August 2025 10:00:01,Sol,SÛlmundr Berg˛Ûrrson has joined your naval officer corps. Initiative 137 Survey 20% Fighter Ops 10% Logistics 10% Operations 15%: Promotion Score 431
15th August 2025 10:00:01,Sol,Construction of Mass Driver completed on Earth
20th August 2025 04:00:01,Unknown,As a result of experience gained in the performance of his duties, Captain (JG) Fair Gu˛ornson has increased his Survey Bonus to 1%
20th August 2025 04:00:01,Teegardens Star,Minerals Discovered on Teegardens Star-A IV - Moon 12: Neutronium 223,729 (0.5) Corbomite 379,456 (0.6) Boronide 314,721 (0.7) Gallicite 14,641 (0.7)
20th August 2025 10:00:01,Sol,Dept. Transport has completed orders
21st August 2025 10:00:01,Barnards Star,New Jump Point found in the Barnards Star System
20th October 2025 16:00:01,Proxima Centauri,Minerals Discovered on Proxima Centauri-A XIV - Moon 11: Corundium 2,371,600 (0.1)
21st October 2025 10:00:01,Sol,Alfvin Fornison has joined your naval officer corps. Initiative 168 Terraforming 15% Xenology 10%: Promotion Score 84
30th October 2025 22:00:01,Teegardens Star,Minerals Discovered on Teegardens Star-A II: Neutronium 35,344 (0.1) Vendarite 12,096,480 (0.6)
21st November 2025 10:00:01,Sol,A JC9K Commercial Jump Drive on Cadmus 001 has suffered a maintenance failure. Repairs have been carried out that required 9 maintenance supplies. The ship now has 197 maintenance supplies remaining. Current Maintenance Clock: 0.88 years
21st November 2025 10:00:01,Sol,Construction of Military Academy completed on Earth

Also of note, the fling-mining colony on Astroid #143 has been completed.
http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x184/sublightrun/Aurora%20LetsPlay/FlingMine1.png The mine is currently producing over 1,000 tons of rare minerals being shipped by mass driver express to earth. For comparison, earth currently produces over 40,000 tons a year of unsustainable rare mineral production, so the asteroid represents about 2% of human production. Replacing earth's production with asteroid mining colonies will require about 50 locations, although perhaps just 20 could cover actual manufacturing needs. By comparison, only 40 asteroids, moons, and comets are estimated to contain meaningful reserves.

In some dimensions where critical shortages exist for only a few minerals selective astoid harvesting works very well, but for us they will only work as a temporary solution until our Titan Mining colony is completed.

Lastly, here are the blueprints for the proposed Thunder-class civilian jump-scout.
http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x184/sublightrun/Aurora%20LetsPlay/Thunder.png

[James the Dark]

My recommendation for freed up industry? Civilian shipyard, followed by more industry. Considering you're going to need to produce the factories you need to set up Titan (no less than 100 will do), you're going to need to build for two planets. Also, bear in mind that with a population of less than a billion, you might run into manpower shortages if you try playing with financial centers before you start expanding to other planets.

[Psionic Dog]

Done

Current Industrial capacity:
60% New shipyards.
25% Automated mine conversion.
15% New Industry.

Good news! We got a 4th Scientist! He's a +15% Defense specialist capable of administering up to 20 labs. When the Beta Shield research was completed we gave the new guy most of the labs for work on improved shield regeneration, and left the old guy a single lab to begin advanced work on missile launcher miniaturization. Someday we might want missiles on our FAC.

Speaking of missiles, research on Implosion Fusions Warheads was completed February, 2026. It'll be another 12 months before I think we'll have enough basic tech for Missile Cruisers, but there's no reason not to tool up the ordinance factories for missile production now.

Missile Production Seminar
Best I can tell nuclear missiles are actually atomic shaped-charge plasma weapons with collateral damage. They don't really do much more damage than a plasma cannonades in this game version, but when used on a planetary surface tend to cause considerable collateral damage even when not used directly against a population. So, the shaped charge hypothesis. Rather than trying to directly strike a small target potentially moving at near relativistic speeds, they attempt to close to within 20 km or so of their target, and then deliver a precise burst of hot plasma to quickly close the remaining distance. Still being a nuke 'soft' targets like populations and industry will suffer moderate damage from proximity.

Anyway, below is the Missile Design Window.
http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x184/sublightrun/Aurora%20LetsPlay/MissileDesign.png
The current options produce a small anti-ship medium-ranged missile with a modest payload.

'Size 6' is the missile sweet-spot against radar aquistion. In aurora, there is a minimal signature floor. I think it is 0.316 for a minimal 10% rated detection range on a minimal sensitivity-1 scanner. This signature floor matches up to a size 6.3 missiles. Smaller missiles will still be detected at the same point, larger missiles will be detected earlier.

Smaller and larger missiles still have their uses: smaller missiles have faster firing rates and salvo densities, allowing better missile defense saturation. Larger missiles are good for heavy-hitting armored and/or guided designs since they have lower armor/sensor to weight ratios.

I figure with FAC as the primary weapon, medium-range fast-firing compact missiles would be ideal for jump-point and planetary assaults.

Is this a good plan, or do people rather see LongRange/HeavyWarhead/Armored/MRV/Guided designs?

It's also possible to build Anti-Missiles, but those are preferably the minimal size-1. Unfortunately, our missile agility tech isn't good. While using bigger engines to compensate might help that would also require larger magazines and slower launch tubes.

[James the Dark]

The best lesson in missile design is that the optimum warhead damage progression is by squares. Each progressive square breaches another armor layer down. A 4 damage missile breaches into the second armor layer, where a 9 damage missile would breach into the 3rd. Depending on the technology available to you, your long range missiles should aspire to be 4's with early tech, 9's with mid tech, and 16's if you really go all-out with warhead research. Larger missiles can have heavier warheads, but keeping it under the Size 6.1 limit is a must. If you're making PDMs, you'll only realistically need 1 point of damage, since they're for popping missiles, not ships.

I'd say go for, at this juncture, a 4 point damage warhead (should be around 1.8 MSPs), 1.5 fuel, 1.5 engine, and all the rest into agility. That gives you tens of millions of kilometers of reach with a decently zippy missile, if with a poor-ish chance to hit. And they take up a fraction of the size of an ICBM, so you can refit your future PDCs to run on them instead of ICBMs.

[Thorcrest]

Well, I started up playing Aurora and I have a few colonies set up and am setting up mining colonies throughout the system, but I keep getting an Error 6 message, it says Overflow and makes it so that when I hit the turn button, the actual amount of time that passes is significantly reduced (30 days is only 6 hours). It makes the game incredibly slow and stagnant at this point, especially since I am just learning and kind of just trying different things just to get the feel of the game. Anybody know the solution?

[Psionic Dog]

On Bugs and Errors
The game is, unfortunately, buggy. My initial experience was apparently one of the worst reported as far as bugs due to a blotched installation failure and a missing dll file. (Installation was a complicated challenge by itself prior to the 5.54 full-install release). This current Galactic Takeover game is I think the only error-free game I've played. So far.

Anyway, the Overflow error. I've seen it a couple times, once when a task group with no standing orders given had the 'cycle orders' option checked. Performing a system restarts has also been surprising effective at solving a variety of reoccurring errors when no in-game cause could be found.

On Missiles
I've found the half-step sizes 6, 12, 20 etc are also worth using. True, they have the same penetration depth as their smaller square cousins, but the half steps do double damage at that maximum depth. For example, a 6-damage warhead inflicts 2 damage points to the 2nd level, a 12-damage inflicts 2 damage points to the 3rd level, etc.

At the staring tech level the break even point for agility vs engines is something like 2% agility-98% engine. For anti-ship missiles at this stage we're probably better off with 0% agility-100% engine to maximize speed for missile defense penetration. In most games I wait until after researching an agility upgrade or two before making anti-missiles.

Let me remind everyone that our current best active-scanner only has an 18.1 m km detection range. A significantly longer ranged missile is possible, but would require investment into either a bigger, more expensive scanner or else the use of a dedicated FAC spotter.

Here are a few more unarmored unguided missile option combination from my calculator. All missiles here have a 10% chance to hit a target traveling their speed, and a 100% chance to hit a target traveling 1/10th their speed.
{table]Option|Missile Size|Warhead(dmg)|fuel(range)|Engine(speed)
A|4|2 (6)|0.2 (10m km)|1.8 (18,000 km/s)
B|3|1.34 (4)|0.16 (10.7m km)|1.5 (20,000 km/s)
C|3|1.34 (4)|0.36 (24m km)|1.3 (17,300 km/s)
D|4|1.34 (4)|0.25 (12.5m km)|2.41 (24,100 km/s)
E|4|1.34 (4)|0.5 (25m km)|2.16 (21,600 km/s)
F|6|3 (9)|0.5 (15m km)|2.5 (16,600 km/s)
G|1.5|0.34 (1)|0.02 (2.6m km)|1.14 (30,400 km/s)[/table]

'Option A' was my original plan.
Options B/C are dmg-4 speed/range designs compressed down to size-3.
Options D/E are dmg-4 speed/range designs at the original size-4

Even faster, or even longer ranged designs are also possible: but 'faster' generally requires larger sizes and 'farther' generally results in slower.

Option F is a sample dmg-9, size-6 design.

Option G is a sample Anti-Missile for our tech level. It has a 17% chance to hit the 'Option A' missile. It could be useful for emergency planetary defense or for whittling down a heavy enemy missile wave, but at that to-hit ratio we'd need lots and lots of them.

The proposed 1.5 fuel size-5 design has a range of about 60m km, and wasn't included in the table since it doesn't fit in with the current FAC offensive plan or our current targeting systems. It was a little slow for penetrating stiff anti-missile defense, and any target that lacks an anti-missile screen ought to be vulnerable to our FAC particle beams. I'll reconsider if more people vote in for an ultra-long ranged missile battle plan.

The more I look at the chart, the more I think 'C' might be a fun choice. It's small enough to adapt for FAC strike groups, and could be spammed in impressive volumes by missile cruisers.

[James the Dark]

Have you looked into Box Launchers? With those, you can pack a big salvo onto small ships, albeit making them one-offs before they have to land and rearm. Great for fighters, I should think, but since I don't use them, I typically wouldn't bother.

But then again, I am big into missiles in general. Also, isn't the PDM limit a size one missile?

[Psionic Dog]

PDM = Point Defense Missile = anti-missile-missile?

Aurora auto-names anything size-1 as 'anti-missile-missile' and everything else as 'anti-ship-missile,' but the name is just a description for the player's benefit. Mechanically, all automated anti-missile behavior is controlled by the Fire-Control systems. Since any size of missile may be assigned to an equal or larger launcher and any launcher assigned to a fire control, any missile, even an IBM, could be used for anti-missile defense. Size-1 missiles are considered the optimal since they are the cheapest to manufacturer and are the only size that can be fired from the speedy size-1 launchers. Using IBMs as PDMs on the other extreme would be an epic fail.

I'm afraid our Galactic Conquest doesn't have the technology to use box launchers, or even the prerequisites needed to research them. :smallfrown:


• • • • •
September 1st, 2026

Event Log

13th December 2025 04:00:01,Teegardens Star,Minerals Discovered on Teegardens Star-A I: Duran 1,059,968 (0.8) Neut 6,760,000 (0.1) Corb 11,778,620 (1) Merc 17,740,940 (0.1) Sorium 1,081,600 (0.1) Urid 7,884,864 (0.1) Corun 7,595,536 (0.6) Gall 8,479,744 (0.1)
21st December 2025 10:00:01,Sol,Narfi Alfketilsson has joined your army officer corps.: Promotion Score 0
21st December 2025 10:00:01,Sol,A team on Earth led by M˙li Gr·ison has completed research into Beta Shields
29th December 2025 22:00:01,Unknown,As a result of experience gained in the performance of his duties, Captain (JG) RaskulfR Kappison has increased his Survey Bonus to 2%
21st January 2026 10:00:01,Unknown,Captain (JG) Tasaldi Sverrirson has been promoted to Captain of the List
21st January 2026 10:00:01,Unknown,Captain (JG) Vai GeflaugRson has been promoted to Captain of the List
21st January 2026 10:00:01,Sol,Tveggi Skakkison has joined your naval officer corps. Initiative 126: Promotion Score 63
21st January 2026 10:00:01,Sol,Cadmus 004 (Cadmus class) built on Earth and assigned to Shipyard TG
21st January 2026 10:00:01,Sol,Cadmus 005 (Cadmus class) built on Earth and assigned to Shipyard TG
23rd January 2026 10:00:01,Teegardens Star,Minerals Discovered on Teegardens Star-A III: Duranium 11,101,470 (0.3)
4th February 2026 22:00:01,Wolf 359,New Jump Point found in the Wolf 359 System
16th February 2026 04:00:01,Unknown,As a result of experience gained in the performance of his duties, Captain (JG) RaskulfR Kappison has increased his Survey Bonus to 3%
4th March 2026 22:00:01,Sol,Hr¯mingR Hriflason has joined your army officer corps. Ground Combat 25%: Promotion Score 625
4th March 2026 22:00:01,Unknown,Through training or experience, Captain of the List Rambi ¡sfararson has increased his Training Bonus to 100
4th March 2026 22:00:01,Sol,Homer 002 (Homer class) built on Earth and assigned to Shipyard TG
4th March 2026 22:00:01,Sol,Homer 001 (Homer class) built on Earth and assigned to Shipyard TG
4th March 2026 22:00:01,Sol,A team on Earth led by BjÛlfr Hrúrekrson has completed research into Implosion Fission Warhead: Strength: 3 x MSP
4th April 2026 22:00:01,Sol,Gryphon 004 (Gryphon class) built on Earth and assigned to Shipyard TG
4th April 2026 22:00:01,Sol,V·li SteindÛrrson has joined your civilian administration. GU Const Speed 20% Administration Rating 5 Wealth Creation 10% Xenology 10%: Promotion Score 0
4th April 2026 22:00:01,Sol,Retooling for Thunder class completed at Shipyard #1 on Earth
5th April 2026 04:00:01,Sol,Battle Task Group #2 has completed orders
5th April 2026 04:00:01,Sol,Battle Task Group #3 has completed orders
5th April 2026 04:00:01,Sol,2nd FAC Ferry has completed orders
5th April 2026 10:00:01,Sol,2nd FAC Ferry has completed orders
25th April 2026 16:00:01,Teegardens Star,Minerals Discovered on Teegardens Star-A VI: Tritanium 19,882,680 (0.8)
5th May 2026 10:00:01,Wolf 359,A J2200(1-50) Military Jump Drive on Nike 004 has suffered a maintenance failure. Repairs have been carried out that required 30 maintenance supplies. The ship now has 296 maintenance supplies remaining. Current Maintenance Clock: 1.35 years
5th May 2026 10:00:01,Sol,A team on Earth led by BlÊingr Styrbjˆrnson has completed research into Missile Launcher Reload Rate 2
5th May 2026 10:00:01,Sol,A team on Earth led by BjÛlfr Hrúrekrson has completed research into S3 Midgit
5th May 2026 10:00:01,Sol,Sparr Finnvirson has joined your naval officer corps. Initiative 110 Political Reliability 20% Operations 20%: Promotion Score 555
5th May 2026 10:00:01,Sol,Research into Reduced-size Launcher 0.75 Size / 2x Reload has commenced on Earth
29th May 2026 22:00:01,Sol,Leifi Raggison has joined your naval officer corps. Initiative 139: Promotion Score 70
29th May 2026 22:00:01,Sol,A Nuclear Pulse Engine E0.9 on Cadmus 002 has suffered a maintenance failure. Repairs have been carried out that required 25 maintenance supplies. The ship now has 181 maintenance supplies remaining. Current Maintenance Clock: 1.40 years
29th May 2026 22:00:01,Sol,Dept. Collonization has completed orders
4th June 2026 22:00:01,Proxima Centauri,Minerals Discovered on Proxima Centauri-A XIV - Moon 9: Mercassium 1,327,104 (0.8) Gallicite 138,384 (0.9)
29th June 2026 22:00:01,Sol,A team on Earth led by BlÊingr Styrbjˆrnson has completed research into S3-R2 Launcher
29th June 2026 22:00:01,Sol,Research into Capacity 42 Magazine: Exp 30% HTK2 has commenced on Earth
11th July 2026 04:00:01,Unknown,As a result of experience gained in the performance of his duties, Captain (JG) Rambi Darrison has increased his Survey Bonus to 11%
24th July 2026 10:00:01,Sol,Research into Missile Fire Control 24-R40 has commenced on Earth
24th July 2026 10:00:01,Sol,A team on Earth led by BlÊingr Styrbjˆrnson has completed research into Capacity 42 Magazine: Exp 30% HTK2
24th July 2026 10:00:01,Sol,Dept. Collonization has completed orders
24th July 2026 10:00:01,Sol,Gr·i Arngeirsson has joined your civilian administration. Shipbuilding 15% Pop Growth 5%: Promotion Score 0
1st August 2026 08:00:01,Sol,Dept. Transport has completed orders
1st September 2026 08:00:01,Sol,A Active Search Sensor MR18-R50 on Cadmus 001 has suffered a maintenance failure. Repairs have been carried out that required 32 maintenance supplies. The ship now has 165 maintenance supplies remaining. Current Maintenance Clock: 1.65 years
1st September 2026 08:00:01,Sol,A JC9K Commercial Jump Drive on Cadmus 002 has suffered a maintenance failure. Repairs have been carried out that required 9 maintenance supplies. The ship now has 172 maintenance supplies remaining. Current Maintenance Clock: 1.65 years
1st September 2026 08:00:01,Sol,Wayfarer 001 (Wayfarer class) built on Earth and assigned to Shipyard TG
1st September 2026 08:00:01,Sol,A team on Earth led by BlÊingr Styrbjˆrnson has completed research into Missile Fire Control 24-R40
1st September 2026 08:00:01,Sol,”feigr Geirsteinnson has joined your army officer corps.: Promotion Score 0

Citizens of the Empire, it is with great pride that I announce the launch of our first Wayfarer Escort Cruiser as of 8am this morning. The diligent work of our shipyards have also produced an additional pair of Cadmus carriers, which now provide carrier space for every FAC ever built. In a third triumph those workers have also delivered us a pair of cryogenic colony ships, thanks to which Titan now boasts a population of 120,000. 44% of those pioneers are available for imperial manufacturing program. Emigration papers are now available for anyone wishing to join them.

A new nuclear pulse missile named 'The Midgit' has been developed for eventual use in our preemptive missile defense fleet. The midget is size 3, carries a strength 4 warhead, and has a range in excess of 20m km. A fire control system with matching range has also been developed for this system. Armored magazines rated at 2-HTK have been designed. As as soon as practical shield design becomes finalized next month a functional missile cruiser will be ready to join the Wayfarer in active production.

Advanced FAC-based missile-boat design research has gradually picked up as missile-cruiser research has concluded, with launch-tube miniaturization and reduced size engineering departments both currently in development. However, thanks to the tireless work of our growing scientific community we will soon need to focus research on a new goal.

New General Research goals might include:
Advanced Terraforming Technology
Jump-Drive or Jump Gate transit Technology
Further Propulsion research
Further Defense Research
Applied Anti-Missile technology
Long-Range Applied Sensors

Since forewarned is forearmed, designing larger sensors for reconnaissance frigates is my current application.

PS: Any particular screen-shots that people are hoping to see? Nothing seemed particularly new, novel, or otherwise screen-shot worthy this last time around.

[Thorcrest]

Long Range Sensors seems like the best bet, but I'm new so what do I know? :smalltongue:

In other news, I've started getting the hang of this game, but for some reason, my game now only advances by 5 seconds... there are no error messages that pop up and everything looks to be normal... it just goes 5 seconds at a time and takes a LONG time to get the turn through, like a minute at least each time. I'd like to hit 5 days, or even 30 at this point since I am now just kind of sitting around with what I want in the right places waiting for more to be built to set up more mining colonies, but 5 seconds does not make this game playable when you need to wait another month. Any ideas how I could fix this?

[Mistral]

Waiting is pretty much it. That drop in time increments almost always means that someone's in a shooting war. Just keep slogging through, and eventually the battle will end and the time increments will return to normal.

Well, I suppose you could also track down and delete every NPC in the game, but that's kind of impractical.

[Psionic Dog]

Long Range Sensors seems like the best bet, but I'm new so what do I know? :smalltongue:

In other news, I've started getting the hang of this game, but for some reason, my game now only advances by 5 seconds... there are no error messages that pop up and everything looks to be normal... it just goes 5 seconds at a time and takes a LONG time to get the turn through, like a minute at least each time. I'd like to hit 5 days, or even 30 at this point since I am now just kind of sitting around with what I want in the right places waiting for more to be built to set up more mining colonies, but 5 seconds does not make this game playable when you need to wait another month. Any ideas how I could fix this?

There is a box labeled 'auto turn.' When selected, if no interrupt was generated that effect the player race(s), the game automatically advances an additional increment. Click the box, click the turn advance, and go take a 5-minute stretch break while the game automatically runs through the 5s increments until the fight ends. Just make sure you unchecked the box whenever you want the game to pause after the next time increment regardless of interrupts.

[Thorcrest]

Thanks for the help guys, now it's back to some space exploration!

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

There is a box labeled 'auto turn.' When selected, if no interrupt was generated that effect the player race(s), the game automatically advances an additional increment. Click the box, click the turn advance, and go take a 5-minute stretch break while the game automatically runs through the 5s increments until the fight ends. Just make sure you unchecked the box whenever you want the game to pause after the next time increment regardless of interrupts.

Really? Man, if I had known this earlier...

[James the Dark]

It usually takes a while of 5 second clicks, but eventually, somewhere, something goes boom and time returns to its merry chugging.

[Psionic Dog]

November 20th, 2026

Event Dump
[code]6th September 2026 08:00:01,Sol,A team on Earth led by M˝r M·nison has completed research into Shield Regeneration Rate 1.5
6th September 2026 08:00:01,Unknown,The Political Reliability Bonus of Civilian Administrator Reiarr Hr˙trson has increased to 15%
15th September 2026 02:00:01,Sol,Dept. Collonization has completed orders
15th September 2026 02:00:01,Sol,Sveinbjˆrn SnorriRson has joined your naval officer corps. Initiative 191 Factory Prod 10% Terraforming 10% Xenology 10% Operations 20%: Promotion Score 196
15th October 2026 02:00:01,Sol,Construction of Naval Shipyard Complex completed on Earth
15th November 2026 02:00:01,Sol,Gryphon 005 (Gryphon class) built on Earth and assigned to Shipyard TG
15th November 2026 02:00:01,Sol,¡sbjˆrn Gilsbriktson has joined your naval officer corps. Initiative 163 Crew Training Rating 50 Fighter Ops 10% Political Reliability 15%: Promotion Score 463
20th November 2026 02:00:01,Sol,Research into MilTech EM Sensor 4-32 has commenced on Earth
20th November 2026 02:00:01,Sol,A team on Earth led by BlÊingr Styrbjˆrnson has completed research into MilTech IR Sensor 4-24
20th November 2026 02:00:01,Sol,A team on Earth led by M˝r M·nison has completed research into Beta R300/13.5 Shields

Research has commenced on developing applied Military-Grade passive sensors, and as of this morning applied shield-generator technology has been developed. The Beta-300 shield generator masses 50 tons and can stop 1.5 units of damage, with a 300s recharge.

With this final piece of field-ready hardware, a Proposed Missile-Cruiser design awaits:

Minotaur class Missile Cruiser 4,850 tons 504 Crew 577.88 BP TCS 97 TH 240 EM 180
2474 km/s Armour 3-25 Shields 6-300 Sensors 6/8/0/0 Damage Control Rating 3 PPV 24
Maint Life 6.39 Years MSP 223 AFR 62% IFR 0.9% 1YR 9 5YR 141 Max Repair 32 MSP
Magazine 192

Nuclear Pulse Engine E9 (6) Power 40 Fuel Use 90% Signature 40 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres Range 41.2 billion km (192 days at full power)
Beta R300/13.5 Shields (4) Total Fuel Cost 54 Litres per day

S3-R2 Launcher (8) Missile Size 3 Rate of Fire 45
Missile Fire Control 24-R40 (2) Range 24.3m km Resolution 40
S3 Midgit (64) Speed: 18,100 km/s End: 18.4m Range: 20m km WH: 4 Size: 3 TH: 60 / 36 / 18

Active Search Sensor MR18-R50 (1) GPS 1600 Range 18.1m km Resolution 50
Civilian IR Detector (1) Sensitivity 6 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 6m km
Civilian EM Detector (1) Sensitivity 8 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 8m km

Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


A single Minotaur is designed to launch two independently targeted salvos of 4 str4 midget missiles simultaneously every 45 seconds, and contains onboard magazine space for seven complete reloads. The triple-thickness hull is 25% thinner than the Wayfarer, but this is boasted by a quad-shield generator array capable of completely absorbing up to 6 damage points, and recharges 1-shield point every 50 seconds.

Thoughts?

In other news, the new Navel Shipyard for our small FAC designs was also completed, and a new FAC production run has been started. :smallcool:

[James the Dark]

My thoughts is that they should stay close to home. Seven reloads lasts about a minute, but I've gotta say the salvo density is nice and high. Although, one thing these things will be golden at is keeping colonies feeling nice and safe for that long period between terraforming reaching a zero cost planet, and when you can finally divert the manpower into putting up maintanance bays. After all, for a military ship, a 6 year Maint Life is a hell of an accomplishment.

Of course, I'm bein' all smug about things, when I didn't even build my first true missile carrier until 2035.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

I gave the game a try, but I couldn't make heads or tails of what to do. It's even more arcane than dwarf fortress and I'm a pretty good DF player. Enjoying your LP because I may get the idea of how to even play it.

[Thorcrest]

So, I got my first taste of combat last night, and as can be expected. Things did not go well...

So far, I have essentially ignored military matters, instead working on, what I felt were more pressing concerns, colonisation of Sol and various other stars nearby, setting up a Jump Gate Network (That might now bite me in the ass), and developping Industry and Mining colonies.

My 7 Ship Military (I said I ignored it, which is unusual for me) was wiped out after several rounds after the formerly neutral aliens attacked one of my scouts and I sent in my fleet to keep the problem contained to their system. Suffices to say their ships were much better equiped, but were only observed firing at 10000km. My ships have a range closer to 200000 km with their lasers but did not fire a single shot even when they read as hostile contacts.

My ships all had sensors and firing control and power and weapons and were just overhauled yet I did not fire once, even with 100% training.

Did I forget something?

Also, your ship makes mine seem woefully inadequate! Give 'em Hell!

[Psionic Dog]

I gave the game a try, but I couldn't make heads or tails of what to do. It's even more arcane than dwarf fortress and I'm a pretty good DF player. Enjoying your LP because I may get the idea of how to even play it.

Maybe, but I still think I was able to pick up Aurora faster than I did DF. Of course, it also took me a full week before my brain could comprehend the difference between grass, trees, and wildlife on the default DF ASCII char-set...

Basic objective: expand. Make friends with aliens - or exterminate them. See how big your empire can be. If you get bored, turn on the Happy Fun Invaders.

Currently, I have 3 active Aurora games going. This 'Lets Play', a test multi-race game I'm playing against myself, and a tiny-map death match. My death match fleet got chomped into teeny tiny bits when the 'colony' they attacked turned out to be an NPR home world. I think my ships were superior, but superiority only goes so far when out-massed 4:1. My over-eager rush to battle that left both the missile resupply collier convoy and supplemental anti-missile escorts behind didn't help either. The only survivors from that fiasco was a small FAC raiding task group that spent most of the battle rescuing survivors after exhausting their missile stores against the first wave of defenders.

Here's the Psidog 'why didn't my beam weapons fire?' check list:
1) Was the target illuminated by active sensors?
2) Was the target in range of both the beam fire and the beam weapon?
3) Was the beam fire control linked to said beam weapon?
4) Did the ship have orders to fire?
5) Did the ship have time/power to fire?

Points 3 and 4 might be tricky: by default the fire controls are unlinked, and the target selection manual. Weapons can be assigned from either the ship window or from the order of battle window. I prefer manual targeting orders, but if you don't like this hastle an 'auto-fire' check box exists within the Order of Battle Window.

On point 5: an untrained crew might take up to 40 seconds to respond to firing order, but if this is the case you at least get an event notification on "ship weapons preparing to fire" in the event log. Power is required to recharge most beam weapons, but isn't required for ship design. Beam weapons on underpowered ships are effectively single-shot.


• • • • •

February 25th 2027

Citizens of the empire, may I have your attention please! Today marks the joining of the private sector to our great cause, marked by the first corporate space craft launch by our own Sol,¡biˆrnsson Carrier Corporation. Did I pronounce that right?

In other news, Gravitational surveys have been completed for 4 of the adjoining star systems. Two systems are dead-ends on the jump map, and the other two had but a single unexplored path leading onward. The gravitational survey vessels in those systems where ordered onward, while the two ships that found dead ends were recalled home for refueling and maintenance overhauls.

Our rapid expansion has resulted in a widening deficit, and with no spoils of war foreseen to fund our mandated rise industry has been diverted to constructing financial institutions.

As of this morning, here as the system view of Sol.
http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x184/sublightrun/Aurora%20LetsPlay/Spring2007.png

Final Order of business:
Initial applied sensor tech has generated a pair of passive sensors four times larger and more sensitive than the standard civilian suite in use. While there is little need to place these on every vessel, it would be advantages to include a set or two with every fleet.

Here is the Recon Frigate designs I was given this morning.

Prince Consort class Recon Frigate 1,250 tons 111 Crew 161.4 BP TCS 25 TH 80 EM 0
3200 km/s Armour 2-10 Shields 0-0 Sensors 24/32/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
Maint Life 8.07 Years MSP 81 AFR 12% IFR 0.2% 1YR 2 5YR 33 Max Repair 32 MSP

Nuclear Pulse Engine E9 (2) Power 40 Fuel Use 90% Signature 40 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres Range 80.0 billion km (289 days at full power)

MilTech IR Sensor 4-24 (1) Sensitivity 24 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 24m km
MilTech EM Sensor 4-32 (1) Sensitivity 32 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 32m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
The developers also mentioned that the vessel could be modified to include the same warp drive in use by our current jump scouts, although such a design would be larger, more expensive, and slower. Alternatingly, by reducing the engine mass and such luxieries as bridge a FAC corvet-sized smaller, stealthier, (and slower) variation could be built. Personally, I favor the current plan for its speed as the other variations would be slower than our battle fleet.

This brings up the final research plan that will greatly effect our galactic expansion tactics: do we want a fleet of jump-ferries under our exclusive control, or should we research the technology to build a permanent stable jump-gate network? Obviously, security will be of little concern since we shall preemptively make 'defensive' strikes on any alien powers, but while jump gates provide the inexpensive foundation of empire, jump-ship ferries are capable of self-redeploying as needed for maximum flexibility.

Thoughts?

Also, anyone want to watch this continue step-by-step, or shall I play ahead on fast-forward until we find an alien sparing partner?

Event Dump
24th November 2026 08:00:01,Teegardens Star,Minerals Discovered on Teegardens Star-A VII - Moon 3: Neutronium 372,100 (0.6) Tritanium 48,400 (0.6) Boronide 360,000 (0.6) Sorium 19,600 (0.8) Uridium 28,900 (0.7) Gallicite 90,000 (0.5)
26th November 2026 08:00:01,Sol,VÌglundr Ragnison has joined your naval officer corps. Initiative 145 Mining 10%: Promotion Score 73
26th November 2026 08:00:01,Teegardens Star,Gravitational Survey Completed in the Teegardens Star system. The system has a total of 1 jump points
26th November 2026 08:00:01,Wolf 359,Gravitational Survey Completed in the Wolf 359 system. The system has a total of 2 jump points
26th November 2026 08:00:01,Unknown,Captain (JG) SÛlmundr Berg˛Ûrrson has been promoted to Captain of the List
26th November 2026 08:00:01,Proxima Centauri,GV Nike 003 is unable to carry out its special system survey orders as there is no acceptable destination within ten billion kilometers.
26th November 2026 08:00:01,Wolf 359,GV Nike 004 is unable to carry out its special system survey orders as there is no acceptable destination within ten billion kilometers.
26th November 2026 08:00:01,Teegardens Star,GV Nike 001 is unable to carry out its special system survey orders as there is no acceptable destination within ten billion kilometers.
26th November 2026 08:00:01,Proxima Centauri,Gravitational Survey Completed in the Proxima Centauri system. The system has a total of 1 jump points
26th November 2026 14:00:01,Proxima Centauri,Minerals Discovered on Proxima Centauri-A XV - Moon 1: Duran 1,076 (1) Corb 1,239 (1) Boron 400 (1) Merc 1,076 (1) Vend 196 (1) Sorium 23 (1) Urid 807 (1) Gall 174 (1)
6th December 2026 08:00:01,Unknown,Captain of the List Rambi ¡sfararson has been promoted to Commodore
6th December 2026 08:00:01,Unknown,Through training or experience, Captain (JG) SigdiarfR Sigr¯rson has increased his Training Bonus to 25
6th December 2026 08:00:01,Ross 128,An exploration of a jump point in the Wolf 359 system has revealed the new system of Ross 128
6th January 2027 08:00:01,Sol,Arnaldr Augeirsson has joined your army officer corps. Xenology 15% Diplomacy 15% Espionage 10%: Promotion Score 0
6th January 2027 08:00:01,Sol,A team on Earth led by M˝r M·nison has completed research into Reduced-size Launcher 0.75 Size / 2x Reload
9th January 2027 08:00:01,Proxima Centauri,Minerals Discovered on Proxima Centauri-A XV: Sorium 79,000 (0.5)
18th February 2027 08:00:01,Sol,Cadmus 008 (Cadmus class) built on Earth and assigned to Shipyard TG
18th February 2027 08:00:01,Sol,HrÛlaugr HrafningRson has joined your scientific establishment. Research (Logistics / Ground Combat) 25% Administration Rating 4: Promotion Score 0
18th February 2027 08:00:01,Sol,Cadmus 007 (Cadmus class) built on Earth and assigned to Shipyard TG
18th February 2027 08:00:01,Sol,Dept. Collonization has completed orders
18th February 2027 08:00:01,Sol,Cadmus 006 (Cadmus class) built on Earth and assigned to Shipyard TG
20th February 2027 12:00:01,Barnards Star,Gravitational Survey Completed in the Barnards Star system. The system has a total of 2 jump points
20th February 2027 12:00:01,Barnards Star,GV Nike 002 is unable to carry out its special system survey orders as there is no acceptable destination within ten billion kilometers.
25th February 2027 12:00:01,Sol,Construction of Convert Mine to Automated completed on Earth
25th February 2027 12:00:01,Sol,¡biˆrnsson Carrier Corporation has launched a new Gryphon class Freighter
25th February 2027 12:00:01,Barnards Star,GV Nike 002 is unable to carry out its special system survey orders as there is no acceptable destination within ten billion kilometers.

[Thorcrest]

Thanks for the combat pointers! My new fleet was assembled and has slaughtered the first three hostile fleets it has come into contact with... although, the next fleet seems bigger, but we will see what happens.

My thoughts would be the jump gate network, then you don't need as much Ferry Micro-management/Jump Engine capable ships.

[James the Dark]

I use jumpgates as a matter of course.

Another problem you have to deal with when fighting is that the enemy probably has some level of ECM. Each successive layer of it decreases the effective lock-on range of your sensors, and makes it harder for your weapons to get a viable firing solution. So you might have an active sensor with a rating for 12.8 million kms, but can only fire from 6 inward. ECCM reduces this reduction, allowing that 6 million km sensor to reach out to, perhaps, 9 million again.

[Psionic Dog]

Jump gates it is.
I'll develop a military squadron jump drive for advanced deployments, but a gate network will become the primary plan.

@Thorcrest: Glad to hear you're winning battles! Curiosity: what sort of weapon tactics are you using?


• • • • •

18th March 2027
Citizens, at noon today the Nike 002 transited through an unexplored warp point into the Ross 154 system. One of the planets, designated for now only as Ross 154 A-II, has a breathable Oxygen-Nitrogen atmosphere. At -14°C the surface is still a little cold for direct settlement, but a minor terraforming project can easily correct that. However, this golden planet may hold intelligent life too slow to recognize our destined greatness. Until a jump scout is available to survey the inner system an Alien Watch warning is in effect. Thank you.

1st April 2027
Payed Advertising
Howdy citizens! Tired of living in the shadows of the ruined empires of the 3rd war? We here at ¡bîrnsson Carrier Corporation are pleased to announce the launch of the first privately financed Homer class Colony Ship, and assure you that at iCC your money speaks. No red tape, minimal paper work, only the classic first paid, first go service. Call now to place your reservation to Titan. We are also taking nonrefundable deposits to secrue your place in line for Ross 154 as soon as the Imperial Gate network is established.

1st June 2027
The 2nd Commercial Shipyard has been completed. This brings the empire up to 6 shipyards with 9 total active slipways. The freed Industrial capacity has been directed into building a Space Port to accelerated cargo loading, but project goal will be needed soon. Proposals have been made for terraforming installations, but these tend to also be labor intensive to run. Other options include even financial institutions or research labs.

1st July 2027
The JSC Sphynx 001 reports completing the geological Teegardens Star survey. Assorted deposits of useful minerals were found, but nothing worth the shipping costs unless Ross 154 turns out to be a complete mineral bust. The Sphynx has been ordered to scout out Ross 154 for both minerals and taxable natives

Screen shot of our Shipyards:
http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x184/sublightrun/Aurora%20LetsPlay/Shipyards2027.png

Event Log:
18th March 2027 12:00:01,Unknown,Captain (JG) NÊnniR Hj·lmgrÌmrson has been promoted to Captain of the List
18th March 2027 12:00:01,Sol,A Nuclear Pulse Engine E0.9 on Cadmus 004 has suffered a maintenance failure. Repairs have been carried out that required 25 maintenance supplies. The ship now has 181 maintenance supplies remaining. Current Maintenance Clock: 0.95 years
18th March 2027 12:00:01,Sol,Fri˛jÛfr Normarson has joined your naval officer corps. Initiative 149 Survey 10% Fighter Ops 10% Logistics 20% Xenology 10%: Promotion Score 287
18th March 2027 12:00:01,Sol,A team on Earth led by BlÊingr Styrbjˆrnson has completed research into MilTech EM Sensor 4-32
18th March 2027 12:00:01,Ross 154,An exploration of a jump point in the Barnards Star system has revealed the new system of Ross 154
26th March 2027 18:00:01,Sol,Construction of Mass Driver completed on Earth
26th March 2027 18:00:01,Ross 154,New Jump Point found in the Ross 154 System
26th March 2027 18:00:01,Unknown,Through training or experience, Civilian Administrator Duke PsiDog has increased his Factory Production Bonus to 25%
26th March 2027 18:00:01,Unknown,The Political Reliability Bonus of Colonel FinnÛlfr K·rungRson has increased to 5%
29th March 2027 08:00:01,Unknown,As a result of experience gained in the performance of his duties, Captain (JG) Au˙lfr Ambason has increased his Survey Bonus to 2%
1st April 2027 18:00:01,Sol,¡biˆrnsson Carrier Corporation has launched a new Homer class Colony Ship
15th April 2027 12:00:01,Teegardens Star,Minerals Discovered on Teegardens Star-A VII - Moon 12: Neutronium 980,100 (0.2)
1st May 2027 18:00:01,Sol,A JC9K Commercial Jump Drive on Cadmus 004 has suffered a maintenance failure. Repairs have been carried out that required 9 maintenance supplies. The ship now has 172 maintenance supplies remaining. Current Maintenance Clock: 1.07 years
1st May 2027 18:00:01,Unknown,Colonel Hallkell SÛlmundrson has developed a significant medical problem that will affect his long term health. Current Assignment: Unassigned
1st May 2027 18:00:01,Sol,Lokki ÷lvaldrson has joined your naval officer corps. Initiative 176 Survey 15% Terraforming 10% Espionage 20%: Promotion Score 215
1st June 2027 18:00:01,Sol,Nike 003 has completed her overhaul
1st June 2027 18:00:01,Sol,Homer 004 (Homer class) built on Earth and assigned to Shipyard TG
1st June 2027 18:00:01,Sol,Haukr ¡sason has joined your civilian administration. Shipbuilding 15% Administration Rating 2 Mining 5% Terraforming 15% Pop Growth 5%: Promotion Score 0
1st June 2027 18:00:01,Sol,Homer 003 (Homer class) built on Earth and assigned to Shipyard TG
1st June 2027 18:00:01,Sol,Construction of Commercial Shipyard Complex completed on Earth
1st June 2027 18:00:01,Sol,Nike 001 has completed her overhaul
1st June 2027 18:00:01,Sol,Retooling for Prince Consort class completed at Shipyard #1 on Earth
1st July 2027 18:00:01,Teegardens Star,JSC Sphynx 001 is unable to carry out its special survey orders as there is no acceptable destination within ten billion kilometers
1st July 2027 18:00:01,Sol,Star Knight 006 (Star Knight class) built on Earth and assigned to Shipyard TG
1st July 2027 18:00:01,Sol,Retooling for Minotaur class completed at Shipyard #4 on Earth
1st July 2027 18:00:01,Sol,GV Nike 003 is unable to carry out its special system survey orders as there is no acceptable destination within ten billion kilometers.
1st July 2027 18:00:01,Sol,GV Nike 001 is unable to carry out its special system survey orders as there is no acceptable destination within ten billion kilometers.
1st July 2027 18:00:01,Sol,Gryphon 006 (Gryphon class) built on Earth and assigned to Shipyard TG

[Thorcrest]

Weapon Tactics... let's see... for the most part I have been using lasers in relatively close proximity. Had the problem of not developing military tech for some time, but from the intel I have recieved from captured alien crew, their energy weapons are inferior to even my simple weapons which I have now started developping with almost all of my resources.

I had planned on building missile cruisers for some longer ranged combatants, but have begun suffering from mass mineral shortages. I'm out of almost everything on Earth and the other colonisable worlds on Earth are rather poor stock for mining, other than Mercury and Venus, but due to the high colonisation cost I have ignored them for colonisation, but set up mining colonies. Even with several hundred auto-mines in the system I can't get all the minerals I need, so I need to start cutting back.

As for actual combat fleets, I have a set up of several heavily armoured ships (14) with midrange fire power and a host of mid and light armoured ships to act as heavy fire support and chase ships.

So far, the most costly battle was when they caught me coming through a jump gate due to the fire delay, but I cornered them to only being able to come from one system and have set up an ambush, but they have come through with about 4x more ships than the next largest fleet I fought and about half of my ships are under repair which means I am badly outnumbered, but that battle is just beginning and these ships appear to be quite small, so I may have a chance if they are poorly trained. We will have to see.

As for the actual battles, I tend to have my ships focus fire on enemy ships with about a 3:1 attack ratio to destroy enemy firing capabilities as quickly as possible.

I am now developping a slew of energy weapon techs and need to come up with a new generation of ships, but until I get those minerals back in, this might just be a war of attrition that I cannot win...

If things do take a turn for the worse though, I have several colonies outside of system which currently have enough infrastructure for a combined pop of about 100 million with an actual population of about 10 million and am working at full speed to increase both the population and the capacity of these colonies, especially the one world where the colony cost is only 0.35.

On a related note, on a colony I found some ruins and my Xenology team has determined them to have 154 abandonned installations. What do I need to do to get them operational? It said something about engineers, but I cannot fit Engineer Brigades onto my troop transports.

[Psionic Dog]

Engineers are 5x larger than standard units, so they can only be loaded onto transports with 5+ battalion capacity.

20th July 2027

ULTRA TOP SECRET COUNSEL REPORT
(Contains Aurora Monster Race Spoilers)
Gentlemen, we have A Problem.

Earlier this morning at 6:15 the Sphinx 001 Jump Scout picked up the signature of a 600-strength shield on a doom ship of unknown size, although EM estimates place her as having 30x strength-20 modules for 1500 tons in shielding alone. Despite the advanced technology implied, she is thought vulnerable to our extended range particle-beam weapons since her maximum observed speed was 1,000 km/s.

3 hours and 10 seconds later later the Sphinx reported numerous FAC had closed to point blank range and were opening fire. That was her last report. For better or worse, the Nike 002 gravitational survey craft was in the outer system, and was able to recover and rely the Sphinx's automated black-box data dump.**

A small portion of the Sphinx's final 5 seconds are as follows:

20th July 2027 09:15:11,Ross 154,A new ship of the Kora class from the Ross 154 Aliens #1089 has been detected in Ross 154. Our intelligence service has designated the new ship as the Kora 003.
20th July 2027 09:15:11,Ross 154,A new ship of the Kora class from the Ross 154 Aliens #1089 has been detected in Ross 154. Our intelligence service has designated the new ship as the Kora 012.
20th July 2027 09:15:11,Unknown,As a result of combat, the crew grade bonus of Sphynx 001 has increased to 0.07%
20th July 2027 09:15:11,Ross 154,Civilian EM Detector destroyed on Sphynx 001 after receiving 1 points of damage. 2 Casualties.
20th July 2027 09:15:11,Ross 154,Sphynx 001 hit by 1 points of damage from an energy or kinetic weapon fired by Kora 041
20th July 2027 09:15:11,Ross 154,Engineering Spaces destroyed on Sphynx 001 after receiving 1 points of damage. 7 Casualties.
20th July 2027 09:15:11,Unknown,As a result of combat, the crew grade bonus of Sphynx 001 has increased to 0.07%
20th July 2027 09:15:11,Ross 154,Sphynx 001 hit by 1 points of damage from an energy or kinetic weapon fired by Kora 018
20th July 2027 09:15:11,Ross 154,Geological Survey Sensors destroyed on Sphynx 001 after receiving 1 points of damage. 13 Casualties.
20th July 2027 09:15:11,Unknown,As a result of combat, the crew grade bonus of Sphynx 001 has increased to 0.07%

In total, the Sphynx withstood 20 rounds of fire that bypassed her armor before suffering total system failure on the 21st.

At the time of her demise, the system scan was as follows:
http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x184/sublightrun/Aurora%20LetsPlay/FirstAlliens.png

Below is the official intelligence report regarding the exceedingly hostile fleet observed:http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x184/sublightrun/Aurora%20LetsPlay/IntelliganceReport.png

As seen, the enemy FAC are 800 tons each with a thermal signature of 140. Assuming maximum power and no emission masking inteligence concluded they have a maximum speed of 10,000 km/s: far beyond anything our ships can produce. They appear to have opened fire at 60,000 km with an advanced meson canon, with one canon per FAC. There were 42 reported Kora-designated FAC.

If the Kora are similar to our own StarKnight, then they likely have 1x7 armor backed by 10-12 HTK worth of components. Three midget strikes or seven particle bursts would probably cripple one. Unfortunately, our midgets only have an estimated 18% hit-chance against 10,000 km/s targets: so about 16 midgets are needed for three statistical hits. With those odds our new Minator missile-cruisers could probably take out one Kora every second volley, or 4 Kora kills per Minator. We'd need at least 11 Minators representing 4.5 years of full shipyard production.

Waiting in hopes that these alliens will not expand is a faint hope, but the Ross 154 system is the most valuable find yet and cannot be long abandoned for the sake of humanity.

A third option is a new Beam-Dreadnought, although if the alliens hold range at 60,000 km only particle-beam weapons can reach them.

Caravan class Dreadnought 7,000 tons 1054 Crew 825.4 BP TCS 140 TH 160 EM 270
1142 km/s Armour 1-32 Shields 9-300 Sensors 6/8/0/0 Damage Control Rating 5 PPV 75
Maint Life 7.67 Years MSP 368 AFR 78% IFR 1.1% 1YR 11 5YR 165 Max Repair 43 MSP

Nuclear Pulse Engine E9 (4) Power 40 Fuel Use 90% Signature 40 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 150,000 Litres Range 42.8 billion km (434 days at full power)
Beta R300/13.5 Shields (6) Total Fuel Cost 81 Litres per day

Particle Beam-2 (15) Range 150,000km TS: 3000 km/s Power 5-2 ROF 15 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
Fire Control S03 96-3000 (2) Max Range: 192,000 km TS: 3000 km/s 95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
Small Pebble Bed Reactor (10) Total Power Output 30 Armour 0 Exp 5%

Active Search Sensor MR2-R1 (1) GPS 32 Range 2.6m km Resolution 1
Civilian IR Detector (1) Sensitivity 6 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 6m km
Civilian EM Detector (1) Sensitivity 8 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 8m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


The Caravan doesn't waste space on demonstratedly ineffective armor, and has roughly a 22% chance to strike a Kora at 60,000 km, but with 15 beam weapons should still manage to cripple one every 2nd barrage. With over 80 HTK worth of internal components the designer hoped it could take on the Kora 5:1 without expending ammunition, but with the Kora Rate of Fire unknown this could be a false hope. A further draw back is that the ship is larger than the currently developed military warp drive and would have to wait for a jump-gate chain before it could operate offensively.

Since the Minator are already in production, my recommendation is to continue with their production and develop a faster, even shorter-ranged Anti-FAC missile for production.

**Fictional interpretation. In aurora data reports go FTL directly to HQ, but a common battle reporting theme is to pretend intermediate step(s) exist.

[James the Dark]

...Oh yeah, and in this game, picking fights early on is a Baaaaad idea.

[Psionic Dog]

December 2027

Citizians of the empire, welcome to the grand opening of Terra's first commercial spaceport. Over the last three months taxes on commercial shipping have risen to account for nearly 1% of the Imperial budget, and we hope this generous repayment of your tax credits at work will only increase this trend. If anyone would like to propose a new industrial project please send in submissions. The current best proposal is produce more research labs.

Let me also thank our local Deperatment of Continual Research for their recent advances, including a new 5,000 ton-capable military squadron jump drive, and the completion of missile launcher miniaturization. By simplifying the auto-loader apparatus, our missile tubes can be shrunk to just half their original size at the cost of but a 400% increase in reloading time. Also recently miniaturized are engineering compartments: we can now build them in half-size increments.

These miniaturization advances opens up several new possibilities, including FAC missile boats such as the proposed Queen Adrienne class:


Queen Adrienne class Fast Attack Craft 1,000 tons 76 Crew 139.52 BP TCS 20 TH 80 EM 0
4000 km/s Armour 2-8 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 4.5
Maint Life 6.63 Years MSP 44 AFR 16% IFR 0.2% 1YR 2 5YR 26 Max Repair 22 MSP
Magazine 51

GB Nuclear Pulse Engine E90 (1) Power 80 Fuel Use 900% Signature 80 Armour 0 Exp 15%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres Range 10.0 billion km (28 days at full power)

S3 R2 Launcher (50% Reduction) (3) Missile Size 3 Rate of Fire 225
Missile Fire Control 24-R40 (1) Range 24.3m km Resolution 40

Active Search Sensor MR7-R16 (1) GPS 359 Range 7.2m km Resolution 16

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


The Queen Adrienne may be but 20% the size our Minator Missile Cruisers, but they can still can launch waves of 3 missiles each, with space for 4 full reloads. Further, while taking no passive sensors, each Adrienne holds a small 70 ton active scanner allowing independent operation without any accompanying Star Knight sensor escorts. To compliment our existing scanner resolutions, these use a medium mesh 800 ton FAC targeted resolution. While a little short for missiles duals, this size was judged a good compliment to our current resolutions. After all, as many advisory have noted, if we use FAC some foes might also.

It was for this reason that the FAC-detector and a full Miltech passive sensor suite is planned for inclusion on-board our proposed Troubador Jump-Cruisers.

Troubador class Jump Escort Cruiser 5,000 tons 441 Crew 666 BP TCS 100 TH 200 EM 0
2000 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 3-26 Shields 0-0 Sensors 24/32/0/0 Damage Control Rating 7 PPV 10.4
Maint Life 8.24 Years MSP 583 AFR 28% IFR 0.4% 1YR 15 5YR 229 Max Repair 156 MSP

J5000(3-50) Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 5000 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
Nuclear Pulse Engine E9 (5) Power 40 Fuel Use 90% Signature 40 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 150,000 Litres Range 60.0 billion km (347 days at full power)

Single Gauss Cannon R2-67 Turret (2x3) Range 20,000km TS: 9000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 2 ROF 5 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S01.5 16-9000 (1) Max Range: 32,000 km TS: 9000 km/s 69 37 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Active Search Sensor MR2-R1 (1) GPS 32 Range 2.6m km Resolution 1
Active Search Sensor MR7-R16 (1) GPS 359 Range 7.2m km Resolution 16
MilTech IR Sensor 4-24 (1) Sensitivity 24 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 24m km
MilTech EM Sensor 4-32 (1) Sensitivity 32 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 32m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


While jump gates (currently under research) will provide our primary commercial highways, one never knows our fleet will need to make a preemptive strike 'off grid'.

Speaking of research, with our latest advances just two projects are under research: Missile Agility and Jump Gates. Is there a third or fourth project in mind to keep the majority of our science establishment working, such as on Ship Terriforming Modules, or should all our efforts be focused on completing our current two priority projects?

For reference, the current jump map is as follows. Citizans are encouraged to plan banquet of honor for when our Gravitational-survey crews next return for overhaul.

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x184/sublightrun/Aurora%20LetsPlay/GalacticMap2.png

[Kzickas]

While I don't know the game, so I can't offer specific advice, on a stratigic level however I would advice sending a ship to hang around on Barnard's star to see if the aliens are moving towards the sol system. And secondly we have to prepare for the possibility that they will, and that means being ready to meet them at the jump point from Barnards star.

In terms of colonization I think it would be wise to skip dead end systems like proxima and teegardens for now if other worlds can be colonized comparativly easly, the deadend worlds can be filled in later and we need to grab as much territory as possible before someone else snaps it up

[Psionic Dog]

Good idea about picketing the jump point into Barnards star. One of our shinny new Civilian-type Thunder Jump Scouts would be perfect. Sure it will get squashed if anything big came through, but that would provide warning.

One difference between Aurora and other 4x games is that exploration is more of a development requirement than a race: new systems literally don't exist until someone jumps through an unlinked jump point. Further, any Oxygen-Nitrogen worlds automatically have X% chance of a preexisting alien race. 'Getting there first' is only of interest in the late-game when the maximum star count starts forcing more cross-links on exploration and fewer new systems. Eventually we'll cross link with the explored map of the original seeded computer-player, but I'd say we have 50/50 odds that this 'Lets Play' will retire before then.

For reference, I'm planing on running this 'Lets Play' out until we conquer two or three computer-controlled non-monster races.


• • • • •

July 13, 2028
Dear Diary,

Nothing exciting happened this month, like last month, and the months before that. Which isn't to say things haven't been busy: I'm constantly stamping new paper work dispatching new colonists to Titan, or instructing an Imperial freight group orders to send more automated mines to Comet #1. Also, our Neutronium deposits on earth have been exhausted, and our astroid mining colony provides but a tenth of the local requirements. The stockpile built up will last perhaps 5-10 years, which is longer than our budget will stay black. An initial production run of 2,000 midget missiles has almost concluded, so letting the ordinance factories idle is a short term solution that would cut the current deficit in half.

On a brighter note shipbuilding continues at breathtaking speed: three new Thunder jumps scouts plus our 2nd Wayfarer rose out of their shipyard slips in April, and the FAC yard has been retooled for additional Medusa construction following the completion of Star Knight 007. In fact, shipyard production might be rushing *too* fast. Our academies have been focusing on producing well-trained candidates from the start, and so train less than 1700 new crew members each a year. Three years ago we had a trained pool of 5,000 navel personal. Today we have less than 4,000 in reserve. With the shipyards continuing to expand, we may soon need a third Military Academy or else use half trained conscript crews on our less critical vessels.

Still haven't received word from the Geology team on Comet #2. Its been nearly two years, and I'm starting to fear they've built themselves a still and are just counting days to retirement. If nothing comes in the next two months I'll transfer them someplace hot and rocky until they show proper motivation again.

Thinking of the future, the next few months should be... interesting. Multiple research projects, shipyard expansions, and the new Research lab being built are all expected to finish this fall. At least it won't be boring then.

Your author, Duke PsiDog

Event Log
20th November 2027 21:15:16,FL Virginis,An exploration of a jump point in the Ross 128 system has revealed the new system of FL Virginis
20th December 2027 21:15:16,Unknown,Colonel Hr¯mingR Hriflason has been promoted to Brigadier General
20th December 2027 21:15:16,Sol,A team on Earth led by BlÊingr Styrbjˆrnson has completed research into S3 R2 Launcher (50% Reduction)
20th December 2027 21:15:16,Sol,Construction of Commercial Spaceport completed on Earth
20th December 2027 21:15:16,Sol,Raggi Nannrson has joined your army officer corps. Ground Combat 5% Political Reliability 10% Espionage 15% Ground Forces Training 50: Promotion Score 194
20th January 2028 21:15:16,Unknown,Captain (JG) Sparr Finnvirson has been promoted to Captain of the List
20th January 2028 21:15:16,Unknown,The Political Reliability Bonus of Colonel Fair Illugison has increased to 5%
20th January 2028 21:15:16,Sol,HÛlmdÛrr ¡gautsson has joined your naval officer corps. Initiative 180 Logistics 25%: Promotion Score 246
20th January 2028 21:15:16,Unknown,Captain (JG) Refli Melsnatison has developed a serious medical problem that will affect his long term health. Current Assignment: Public Affairs Officer - Fleet Headquarters
20th January 2028 21:15:16,Sol,¡biˆrnsson Carrier Corporation has launched a new Gryphon class Freighter
30th January 2028 15:15:16,Unknown,As a result of experience gained in the performance of his duties, Captain (JG) Sigbjˆrn Tranison has increased his Survey Bonus to 11%
20th February 2028 21:15:16,Sol,Gryphon 008 (Gryphon class) built on Earth and assigned to Shipyard TG
20th February 2028 21:15:16,Sol,HarÊnni Burrson has joined your naval officer corps. Initiative 151 Crew Training Rating 150 Operations 10%: Promotion Score 1001
20th February 2028 21:15:16,Sol,A Active Search Sensor MR18-R50 on Cadmus 003 has suffered a maintenance failure. Repairs have been carried out that required 32 maintenance supplies. The ship now has 149 maintenance supplies remaining. Current Maintenance Clock: 1.88 years
20th February 2028 21:15:16,Unknown,Through experience as a project leader, Scientist BjÛlfr Hrúrekrson has increased his Administrative Rating to 7
27th February 2028 03:15:16,Sol,Dept. Transport has completed orders
30th February 2028 09:15:16,Unknown,As a result of experience gained in the performance of his duties, Captain (JG) Rambi Darrison has increased his Survey Bonus to 12%
5th March 2028 03:15:16,Ross 128,New Jump Point found in the Ross 128 System
5th March 2028 03:15:16,Sol,Star Knight 007 (Star Knight class) built on Earth and assigned to Shipyard TG
5th March 2028 03:15:16,Unknown,Through training or experience, Civilian Administrator SpakR Haltison has increased his Factory Production Bonus to 25%
5th April 2028 03:15:16,Sol,Wayfarer 002 (Wayfarer class) built on Earth and assigned to Shipyard TG
5th April 2028 03:15:16,Sol,Retooling for Medusa class completed at FAC Yard on Earth
5th April 2028 03:15:16,Sol,A Nuclear Pulse Engine E0.9 on Cadmus 001 has suffered a maintenance failure. Repairs have been carried out that required 25 maintenance supplies. The ship now has 181 maintenance supplies remaining. Current Maintenance Clock: 0.40 years
5th April 2028 03:15:16,Sol,¡sleikr Raskvirson has joined your naval officer corps. Initiative 108 Crew Training Rating 100 Xenology 10% Diplomacy 10%: Promotion Score 454
19th April 2028 09:15:16,Ross 128,New Jump Point found in the Ross 128 System
19th April 2028 09:15:16,Sol,Thunder 002 (Thunder class) built on Earth and assigned to Shipyard TG
19th April 2028 09:15:16,Sol,Thunder 001 (Thunder class) built on Earth and assigned to Shipyard TG
19th April 2028 09:15:16,Sol,Thunder 003 (Thunder class) built on Earth and assigned to Shipyard TG
19th May 2028 09:15:16,Sol,H˙n˛jÛfr GuvÈRson has joined your army officer corps. Ground Combat 15% Xenology 10% Espionage 20%: Promotion Score 225
19th June 2028 09:15:16,Sol,Arinbjˆrn HrÛlaugrson has joined your naval officer corps. Initiative 103 Crew Training Rating 125 Xenology 15%: Promotion Score 677
19th June 2028 09:15:16,Sol,Slipway added to Light Commerce Yard on Earth
13th July 2028 15:15:16,Sol,Dept. Collonization has completed orders
13th July 2028 15:15:16,Ross 128,A Nuclear Pulse Engine E9 on Nike 004 has suffered a maintenance failure. Repairs have been carried out that required 20 maintenance supplies. The ship now has 276 maintenance supplies remaining. Current Maintenance Clock: 3.54 years
13th July 2028 15:15:16,Unknown,Through training or experience, Civilian Administrator Duke PsiDog has increased his Administrative Rating to 6
13th July 2028 15:15:16,Sol,TÛsti Hjarrandison has joined your army officer corps. Ground Combat 15%: Promotion Score 225

Edit: This 'Lets Play' is currently on hold for finals week. Next installment coming Saturday.

[Psionic Dog]

RIP: Game Over. Would you like to continue?

A number of things went wrong.
Holidays happened, and the game (and game feedback) stalled. Then the external hard-drive I was running the game off of went flaky. Sometimes to loads right up, other times it whines for for hours without ever mounting. I think that's a bad sign.

Still, if enough people want this to continue, I'll see about copying the old save to a new drive before the currently sputtering drive decides to finally die.

Also, I'm checking for interest in an Aurora 4x multiplayer game (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=12583277). If anyone is wanting to play dwarf-fortress detail in space, check it out. :smallsmile:

[TallTroll]

I've just discovered Aurora. Awesome.

So far, I've built ships (my first "warship", a half-assed Missile DD is due Sept 2028), started colonising, and am still surveying JPs. I've never even built a Jump-capable ship, let alone been through a JP, but it's second on the list, right after getting a PB armed DD, so I can at least chase off lightly armed scouts etc