Aurora - Dwarf Fortress In Space

Pages

I ran across a mention of a space 4x game called "Aurora". The Wiki is here.

As far as I can see from a little bit of time with the install, it's a hugely detailed 4x where you design and manage *everything*. This puts the spreadsheet in the stereotypical spreadsheet game.

For example, a nice description of shipyards:

All ships greater than 500 tons have to be built in Shipyard Complexes. The cost of a Shipyard Complex is 2400 BP and it is built using industrial capacity (construction factories in v4.8). When completed, the Shipyard Complex has a single Slipway with a capacity of 1000 tons. Additional Slipways and extra capacity for existing Slipways are built by the Shipyard Complex itself (without affecting the building of ships). Each Shipyard Complex is dedicated to building a specific class of ship and may build one of that class in each Slipway. The Shipyard may be retooled (see below) to build a different class of ship and this does not affect any ships currently under construction but once retooling is underway, no new tasks can be started. This simulates a shipyard getting ready for future construction while completing work on existing shipyard tasks. In effect, a Shipyard Complex has two distinct levels. The Slipway level, where ships are built, refitted, repaired and scrapped at the Racial Shipbuilding Rate, and the Shipyard level, where extra slipways are constructed, extra capacity is added and retooling is carried out, also at the Racial Shipbuilding Rate. The manning requirement for a Shipyard Complex is equal to one million for each shipyard complex plus 100 per ton of total capacity. For example, a Shipyard with two 5000 ton slipways would be 1m + (10,000 x 100) = 2m.

How to design sensor modules for ships:

Now its time to add an active sensor. Open the Create Research Project window again, using either the Design button on the Economics window or Ctrl-F6 from the main menu. The first item in the Research Project Type list is active sensors, which is useful as that is what we need. There are five dropdowns this time. Lets make the size of the Antenna 2 HS. This increases the Sensor Strength of the component to 20, which our current Active Grav Sensor Strength of 10 multiplied by the 2 HS. In the text area that shows the details of the new active sensor, several of the fields are the same as the engines so I won't bother describing them again. New information includes the chance of destruction by electronic damage (from microwave weapons), the Resolution and the Range. Resolution Zero is actually resolution 1 but it is described as zero because it treats anything less than 1 as equal to 1.

The Range of an active sensor is equal to Resolution x Sensor Strength x 10,000. So by increasing the resolution you can dramatically increase the range. At the moment, the range is 1 (resolution) x 20 (strength) x 10,000 = 200,000 km. Try changing the resolution to 100 (or 5000 tons). Now the range is 20,000,000 km. So why, you are no doubt asking, wouldn't you have the highest resolution possible? Good question!

An active sensor is able to detect any ship of a size that is equal to or greater than its resolution at its maximum range. So this sensor could detect a ship of 5000 tons or greater (size 100) at 20m km. If the target is smaller than the resolution, the maximum detection range is equal to Max Range x (Target Size / Resolution) ^2. So using this sensor against a target that was size 80, the formula would be:

20m km x (80/100)^2 or 20m x 0.8 x 0.8, which equals 12.8 million kilometers

Against a target of size 20 (1000 tons), the max detection range would be 20m x 0.2 x 0.2 or 0.8 million kilometers

Against a missile (size 1 unless it's huge), 20m x 0.01 x 0.01 = 0.002m, or just 2000 km.

So you need to design active sensors based on the role intended for that sensor. An area search sensor might be designed with a large resolution to find large enemy ships while a sensor designed to detect fast attack craft, which are 1000 tons or less would need a resolution of approximately 20. Missile detection sensors are usually resolution zero. In this case, we want a general search sensor so lets stick with resolution 100. If we encounter an enemy that likes to design ships of 4000 tons or 6000 tons we can modify future sensor designs to take the best advantage of an appropriate resolution (80 or 120).

I have to admit I'm daunted.

Robear wrote:

I have to admit I'm daunted.

If your daunted, I can't even begin to describe what I feel.

Holy cow, this looks - well, I'm not sure what it looks like, except part of what it looks like is awesome.

AAR at The Wargamer.

Excerpt:

Steve Walmsley wrote:

Aurora has the concept of civilian shipping lines. Each shipping line is a company independent of the player's control and each Empire will have one or more shipping lines. The shipping lines generate an income from moving colonists, passengers and trade goods between colonies of the parent Empire. Inter-Empire trade is possible when a trade agreement is signed, in which case you can have civilian ships of both Empires trading among both sets of colonies. The civilians work out the best trade runs for themselves based on the surplus and shortages of sixteen different trade goods on each colony. They will avoid systems where there has been recent combat unless the player stations sufficient warships in that system to overcome their concerns. Civilian ships are treated as alien ships for the purpose of detection by thermal, EM and active sensors. However, they do emit transponder codes which can be detected by any ship in the same system. The player can set some systems as no transponder zones so the civilians don't attract alien raiders but then the civs look like aliens to passive sensors. The Empires generate part of their own income from taxing the shipping lines so it is in their interest to protect civilian shipping. In the case of the AAR paragraph above, a civilian ship was transporting colonists in what I believed to be a safe system when it was hit by seven missiles from an unknown (i.e. undetected) source. Colony ships are not designed to take punishment and the missiles had sizeable warheads so it was destroyed. In Aurora, destroyed ships leave wrecks that can be salvaged for raw materials, intact components and technical data. Salvaging alien wrecks is a good source of research information. They also leave life pods with the surviving crew (casualties are calculated as the ship takes hits). The missile explosions can be detected at a great distance so you might only realise two warring alien races are in the same system as you when you detect such explosions.

Is it REALLY as detailed as Dwarf Fortress? Back when I was thinking about trying Dwarf Fortress I saw a post where someone said they figured out a way to get the bones of their enemies embedded in their obsidian.

Somehow I missed that AAR. I'll have to check it out.

I downloaded the game, but really I need to read all the rules before playing.

Edit - Wow...

Someone's noted my hyperbole! Quick with the ink and scuttle away! Whoopwhoopwhoopwhoopwhoooo!

LobsterMobster wrote:

Is it REALLY as detailed as Dwarf Fortress? Back when I was thinking about trying Dwarf Fortress I saw a post where someone said they figured out a way to get the bones of their enemies embedded in their obsidian.

Well, it's not in ASCII, so that's good.

Is it as deep? I can't tell, but just look at this screenshot.

Whoa.

Wow, this looks right up my alley. Once I find some time I'll download it, look around for an hour or two, get really confused and wish I had the time to figure it all out, then leave it for ever.

Definitely use the wiki. The game is unintelligible without it.

Robear wrote:

The game is unintelligible.

*Pulls out Startopia CD*

I'm good, thanks.

This and this stuff are the only "graphics" I can find.

Edit: Okay, found a better idea of what the game looks like. Some screenshots interspersed with the guy's nature walks, apparently.

Edit #2: Oh crap, uh. Some bothersome tiny images that link to other people's albums at the bottom of that page, including some sexual content. NSFW.

On the plus side, someone looking over your shoulder at work will have no clue that this is a game.

Then again, depending on your slant, the game may be indistinguishable from work for the person that's playing.

Also, Robear, you're not the only one that's made the comparison to DF!

http://bit.ly/4RntuH (Link to DF forums' thread on Aurora)

LobsterMobster wrote:

Is it REALLY as detailed as Dwarf Fortress? Back when I was thinking about trying Dwarf Fortress I saw a post where someone said they figured out a way to get the bones of their enemies embedded in their obsidian.

Just from reading the original Post and glancing at the screenshots, I am compelled (but not prepared) to argue that this is above and beyond what Dwarf Fortress offers in terms of depth.

Yoyoson wrote:

On the plus side, someone looking over your shoulder at work will have no clue that this is a game.

Dude you almost got me there but I really do need to get some work done today.

Say what you like about DF's incomprehensibility, at least you can see everything going on. In the screenshots I've seen, there are a couple of screens showing orbits and planets but that's about it. For me, that's what an open world game is all about: watching events unfold.

Immortalizing your defeated foes in obsidian or calculating the max detection range of an active sensor.

Sweet Jesus...

Chump wrote:

Immortalizing your defeated foes in obsidian or calculating the max detection range of an active sensor.

Why choose? Can we finally have a game where we can do both?

I may try this when I get home tonight.

Grubber788 wrote:

Sweet Jesus...

Chump wrote:

Immortalizing your defeated foes in obsidian or calculating the max detection range of an active sensor.

Why choose? Can we finally have a game where we can do both?

I may try this when I get home tonight.

You are edging in on that Adamantine Boreas again aren't you?

Again, I warn - if you don't read the tutorial on the Wiki, you'll get nowhere.

Looks interesting, I'll give it a try.

Working through the wiki rules sections. Not so bad, actually. It's making sense as I go along.

This makes me laugh.

How has no one made a Last Starfighter-esque movie with spreadsheets instead of stand-up arcade machines?

I tried to start a game last night, but didn't even know how to start, even with the wiki. It should say something to its potential that I want to try again tonight, with a much closer look at the wiki. I might be in over my head.

Oh lord, it sounds like Eve but down to the next level of detail. I'm not sure that I'm ready for that. But I'll have a go anyway, and fail miserably.

What we really need is Dwarf Starship.

Piloted by Lancelot Bon Varlet.

I installed this yesterday briefly. Did it really have to install so many files directly to the system32 directory or was that just a convenience for the programmers. Granted, most of them are abviously just MS redistributables, but I'm not sure that all were. It didnt help that they were older file versions and I had to keep 'preserving' my new version throughout the install. Kinda turned me off right away without even getting into the game.

Grubber, if you follow the "getting started" bit, it explains how to set up a game and generate it. Then you are put back into the setup menu, but with your new game in the drop down list at the top left. Pick it in the list and hit Select on the lower right, and the control bar for your game will appear. That's where all the screens are accessed from.

If you miss that game list, it'll look like you are right back where you started with no change. Those devs, what jokers!

Well, I installed it on my laptop and couldn't get it to run. I took it as a sign.

Irongut wrote:

I installed this yesterday briefly. Did it really have to install so many files directly to the system32 directory or was that just a convenience for the programmers. Granted, most of them are abviously just MS redistributables, but I'm not sure that all were. It didnt help that they were older file versions and I had to keep 'preserving' my new version throughout the install. Kinda turned me off right away without even getting into the game.

It looks like it was developed using VB6. Installing a VB6 app using installer technology from that era installed files into System32 as that was accepted practice back at that time.
For folks trying to run the game on Vista, you may need to run the app as administrator, depending on your security settings.

I played it a little last night and have conflicted feelings about it. On the one hand, I am dismayed as there is just so bloody much here with not much guidance. On the other hand, I am psyched as it looks like you can crawl down the rabbit hole as far as you want to go. It's like X (the original one) and early Dwarf Fortress had an ugly baby.

garion333 wrote:

Well, I installed it on my laptop and couldn't get it to run. I took it as a sign.

That you would be as weak and ineffectual as your laptop?

Pages