Aurora - Dwarf Fortress In Space

Ship component manufacturing means that building a ship will take less time (the components have been built already). Otherwise, the shipyard will build the components but will add the time to do so build time.

In order they were asked:

No. Yes. You can pre-build components so that the shipyard doesn't have to.

If you build ship components in the factories, then the shipyard will use them to speed up the shipbuilding process.

Something else I learned the hard way: beam weapons (specifically gauss cannons) can shoot at incoming missiles with only passive sensors and a fire control computer. Missiles, on the other hand, seem to require active sensors to be able to fire (unless they have onboard sensors, I suppose). So, a lesson is: don't build a squadron of expensive missile gunboats and then send them against progenitors, without an active sensor in your fleet.

--Edit--

Dangit, I didn't see that Nightmare posted.

MoonDragon wrote:

In order they were asked:

No. Yes. You can pre-build components so that the shipyard doesn't have to.

If you build ship components in the factories, then the shipyard will use them to speed up the shipbuilding process.

Something else I learned the hard way: beam weapons (specifically gauss cannons) can shoot at incoming missiles with only passive sensors and a fire control computer. Missiles, on the other hand, seem to require active sensors to be able to fire (unless they have onboard sensors, I suppose). So, a lesson is: don't build a squadron of expensive missile gunboats and then send them against progenitors, without an active sensor in your fleet.

--Edit--

Dangit, I didn't see that Nightmare posted.

I saw somewhere in the Aurora forums where someone was building cheap active sensor ships that were only to be used to "paint" targets and then offsetting one of these ships from the main fleet so the enemy would not know the main threat axis. I wish I could find a link to this. I also don't remember a post describing how well (or even if) it worked, so take all this with a huge grain of salt. Still, interesting tactic if it works.

The Dwarven history reaches far back. The Age of Legends, when monsters and Dragons walked the realm. Their history tells of wars with cunning goblins, crafty humans, and vicious elves. This is the first year of the Age of Stars. The "God Hammer" Empire has consolidated power over their planet, the "Rocky Globe of Sighs" and have produced their first shipyard. Their fledgling fleet will grow and they will build mighty fortresses on countless worlds.

After 14 years of research the engines and sensors needed to produce our first Interplanetary ship are completed. The Rhesus 001 is a Geological Survey Ship that will sniff out gold, dolomite, and other valuable minerals on far off planets.

There is only one remaining question on the Rocky Globe of Sighs. How do we move Rhesus 001 from the "Shipyard TG" task group to the "Survey One" Task Group and tell it to go to Luna?

Stupid dwarves always seem to build themselves into a corner

Select the Task Force view, by default ships are assigned to the Shipyard Task Group when they are built, so select that from the drop down. You should see the Rhesus 001 in the list of ships on the right side of the screen. Select it and click the Detach button (on the bottom right of this screen). Ypu now have a 1-ship task group comprising of the Rhesus001 and this "task force" should be selected. Now, you should have some orders in the movement section of this screen, you will probably need to click the "Show Moons" check box to see Luna. When you see Luna in the "targets" section (can't remember the actual name, it's a list on the middle left of the screen), you should see some orders in a list in the middle section. Select Survey (it should be available, if it is not, you may have a non-survey capable ship ) and then click Add Move button (below the "targets" list). There you go, your ship should survey Luna.

It sounds more difficult that it is; once you've done it once, it's not too bad. Figuring it out the first time kind of sucks though.

I hope this makes sense, I don't have the game up and cannot remember the exact labels for everything.

Do you need mass drivers to launch ships? What are they for?

Nightmare wrote:

Directions

Thanks! How would I put the Rhesus 001 from it's own personal task group into another one?

Nightmare wrote:

Select Survey (it should be available, if it is not, you may have a non-survey capable ship )

Like the dwarves would make that kind of mistake!

Robear wrote:

Do you need mass drivers to launch ships? What are they for?

I believe that they operate as catapults both to catch resources sent from other mass drivers (any size catches all incoming objects) and send resources to other planets (quantity depending on size of mass driver). Later on in the game you won't have to have such a large freighter fleet between planets. I am guessing that mass drivers can also be installed as guns on PDCs and ships.

Robear wrote:

Do you need mass drivers to launch ships? What are they for?

Mass drivers are use to launch minerals to other planets which also have mass drivers. You might have mined the planet with your main shipyards completed, so you would use a mass driver to launch minerals to this planet to build more ships. It could be faster than using a freighter depending on where the planets are.

Yonder wrote:

Thanks! How would I put the Rhesus 001 from it's own personal task group into another one?

There's a tab called "Special Orders / Organization" on the Task Group screen that will let you re-assign ships to different Task Groups.

Also on that tab are ways to automate orders. See the sections called "Default Orders" and "Conditional Orders". Yuo can make your Geo Survey ships automatically survey system bodies unless you have something else for them to do, for instance. Also, can make them automatically go back to a colony for fuel when they get low. Pretty handy stuff.

Well, so far the Dwarves of God Hammer (I wish I had thought to call them Arnok Hammer or Arnok's Hammer) are doing reasonably well for themselves, although I know that my next start would be significantly faster. I did a conventional start instead of Trans Newtonian, so I didn't have any ships or the ability to build them from the start. As I mentioned my first ship rolled out of the yard in the 14th year of the space age. It had completely standard, first generation technology, so I was really surprised at how freaking fast it was. It had the entire Inner Solar System, the Asteroid Belt, and Jupiter mapped out within a year. When it's brother came off the line I set them both to auto survey, the (even more) enormous distances involved out in the Kuiper Belt means that they are still out there surveying.

It is now year 21 and we have begun our first real forays out into the solar system. In addition to the two tiny Rhesus survey ships we have two massive Mule Freighter, on a loop that takes them more than a year. They pick up an automated mine from Rocky Globe of Sighs, drop it off at one of two "close" comets (slightly past Pluto), they pick up all the minerals mined so far, return home, refuel, repeat.

I started with the comets because they are leaving the solar system and I wanted to get to them while the going was good, although these comets don't go too far away, I may be able to mine them continuously. Next I'll put more permanent bases on a couple bodies that has one of the several minerals my homeworld will run out of in the next 50 years. After that (or along side it) I'll look to actually placing some boots on the ground.

PS I just started looking into Planetary Governors and wish I had done so earlier, some of their perks are very nice!

I just burned off two hours in a flash with this game. I'm hooked, finally. Got my first ship up and training (and you guys are right, not easy to figure out the initial TG assignments, but I did it.) It's a freighter that's zipping around the solar system training the crew on it's shakedown cruise.

One question. What is "infrastructure" for? What does it do? Do I want a lot of it?

Infrastructure seems to be for putting people on hostile worlds, so basically sealed, environmentally controlled buildings and transportation networks. The amount of infrastructure needed to support population on a world is based on the "colony cost," on a perfect world that cost is 0 and infrastructure is not required at all, so in the early game infrastructure isn't required. It's quick to build too, so if you don't have immediate plans to put down another colony I wouldn't bother.

If you don't have enough infrastructure your colonist will have negative growth. I'm not sure where but the game tells you have much infrastructure you need for the people living on the planet. However, the formula is colonist in millions x colony cost x 100 = needed infrastructure. So 1 million colonist on a planet with a colony cost of 2 would need 200 infrastructure (1x2x100=200) otherwise people are going to die.

Can you ship infrastructure to, say, an asteroid? Also, do I need any special equipment to place an automated mine on a moon or asteroid?

I haven't experimented with putting people offworld yet, but I believe the answer is yes to the infrastructure. As far as special equipment goes, you need a really really big ship. And I have been putting in a Cargo Handling System as well to speed up the unpacking process from 10 days to 2 days. This is worthwhile in the inner solar system, but when I go out to comets so much of the time is travel time that it really doesn't matter.

Most buildings (including automated mines) take 5 cargo spaces of space, my ship that does this is around 30200 tons. I built a commercial shipyard and set it to "Continual Capacity Increase" until it was able to do that. Commercial Shipyards start bigger, 10,000 instead of 1,000, so I would make a separate commercial yard too.

Infrastructure fits two to a cargo hold, the complete list is in the bottom half of this page.

Edit: Hmm, what exactly do you need to survey the Survey Locations to look for Jump Points? I thought it was just an active gravity sensor (which I did turn on on each of my survey ships) but those aren't generating any survey points, and as expected my Geological Survey points are useless as well.

Do I need to research the basic jump field technology and build special sensors?

Thanks for the info, Yonder, I'll start expanding a yard. I may also invest in ship-based mining tech; not sure, however.

One thing I've noticed. About the smallest fighter I can build right now is over a thousand tons. Do I just have to wait until I get smaller parts? Or develop a bigger fighter bay?

Yonder wrote:

Edit: Hmm, what exactly do you need to survey the Survey Locations to look for Jump Points? I thought it was just an active gravity sensor (which I did turn on on each of my survey ships) but those aren't generating any survey points, and as expected my Geological Survey points are useless as well.

Do I need to research the basic jump field technology and build special sensors?

Yes. You need gravitational survey sensors and and you can only research those when you have Jump Point Theory

Yonder wrote:
Nightmare wrote:

Yes. You need gravitational survey sensors and and you can only research those when you have Jump Point Theory

Oh darn, time to recall the Squirrels I guess, the Dwarves will have to be happy with their own solar system for now.

Gravity sensors are one of the three sensor types for contact detection, as far as I can tell. There's passive thermal, passive EM, and active gravity. Then you need geosurvey sensors the do mineral surveys and gravitational survey sensors to survey jump points.

Robear wrote:

Thanks for the info, Yonder, I'll start expanding a yard. I may also invest in ship-based mining tech; not sure, however.

One thing I've noticed. About the smallest fighter I can build right now is over a thousand tons. Do I just have to wait until I get smaller parts? Or develop a bigger fighter bay?

I haven't done any of that myself but I am guessing that a little of both is true. There are "Fast Attack Craft Engine" and "Fighter Engine" research items, as well as smaller life support options, fuel storage options, and engineering space options, have you gotten any of those yet? I haven't looked into any weapons yet but my ships are around 600 tons to start out with due to some of those techs.

Also I read on the forums that someone had a carrier for "Fast Attack Craft" so I am guessing that the bays eventually get significantly larger than the first "Fighter Bay" option.

Edit: What I just read on their forums seems to imply that the bays you install are cumulative. Not only can five "100 ton bays" hold five 100 ton fighters, but they could also hold one 500 ton craft instead. That's how I read it anyways.

Nightmare wrote:

Yes. You need gravitational survey sensors and and you can only research those when you have Jump Point Theory

Oh darn, time to recall the Squirrels I guess, the Dwarves will have to be happy with their own solar system for now.

I believe each construction facility contributes industrial capacity (BPs?) according to the ratio established by your research. Mine right now is one to twelve, I think.

If the boat bays are cumulative, that would be great. I wonder if I can use a freighter frame to create a "Q-ship"? That would be cool to have a supposed freighter vomit out 30 1000 ton fighters. I guess it would lack stuff that a carrier has, though. Might just be more efficient to have a carrier.

I need to get my asteroid mines up and running. Just drop an automated mine on an asteroid? Then have a freighter visit it periodically?

This is turning into a very cool game.

Robear wrote:

That would be cool to have a supposed freighter vomit out 30 1000 ton fighters. I guess it would lack stuff that a carrier has, though. Might just be more efficient to have a carrier.

I was experiencing with Hull Names (changing them from Freighter to Fighter and whatnot) and it doesn't seem to change armor, size, components, or any other features of the design. I believe it is only for your own book-keeping purposes. You can change the name at any time, even if you already have several ships built (although to be fair you can actually do that with components that do matter as well.)

I need to get my asteroid mines up and running. Just drop an automated mine on an asteroid? Then have a freighter visit it periodically?

Pretty much, although you'll really need multiple mines to get the work going at a respectable clip. Right now I have 55% of my homeworld's production going to churning out automated mines for me. I have 6 "Mule" Freighters with 5 cargo spaces. Four of them are on repeating loops to bring mines to a Kuiper belt Asteroid or Comet, then bring minerals back. Another is on a loop to do the same for three inner Asteroids. The last one is currently on a non-repeating course to a far off asteroid, when it is done, and I build another two new freighters, I think it will be time to get the actual colonization started. I've been working on Infrastructure for around a year and think that I can get a pretty sizable colony going on Mars or the Moon now, although first I am going to scan through Jupiter's and Saturn's moons to see if any of them would be easier to terraform than Mars.

Heck, I may even try to experiment with putting people on the inner asteroids. Automated Mines are twice as expensive as manned mines, so it may pay off. I also need to research the mining module. I wonder if it would be better to have a 30,200 ton freighter do it's own mining?

This is turning into a very cool game.

It definitely is! I am having a lot of fun

Let me see if I can contribute anything interesting to this discussion.

A footnote about mass drivers: once you create a link, make sure you do not pick up the last mass driver from the receiving planet. If you do, you are going to end up bombing your planet. The population will not take kindly to it.

About asteroid mining... I'd suggest against it. Unless you really have to. Make sure you explore every planetary body in the system first. Most likely you'll be able to get what you need from planets--in large enough quantities--that you don't need to bother with asteroids. Never bothered to mine comets myself. Just never seemed like a good idea. Let us know how it goes Yonder.

As explained, infrastructure is the protective habitats that you need on a hostile world. I have not found a way to transport it myself. Once you start shipping colonists to a new colony, they will be lacking infrastructure. This will create a strong need for it. If you look under your colony Wealth tab, you'll see that infrastructure is one of the trade goods. As the need for it grows on the new colony, the civilian shipping lanes will start "trading" in it. In other words, they'll start buying the stuff from your home planet and shipping it to the new colony. Once you have some people on the new colony you can start building the stuff yourself, but it will take a loooong time (unless you ship over a huge number of factories first).

When you "Create Colony", it's just place marker. You basically stake a claim on a celestial body. Once you put down some automated mines (and possibly some mass drivers that work by themselves) it becomes a mining colony. No need for humans. Once you start ferrying over the human population, it stops being a mining colony and becomes a fully fledged colony. You shoudl do this only on a select set of planets that you intend to terraform, eventually. There are exceptions to that rule, naturally, but stick to it for now until you know better.

Aurora does not make any assumptions about your ships, except those that are smaller than 1000 tons, and 500 tons. Ships under 500 tons are considered fighters. Ships under 1000 tons (but over 500 tons) are considered gun boats, or parasites. All other ships, over 1000 tones, are just ships. The hull type you pick (e.g. freighter, cruiser, carrier, etc.) is only for your own personal informational purposes. It has no bearing on the actual game. You can put a ship inside another ship, given enough deck space. One of the strategies people employ is to build large motherships with jump capability that deploy various survey ships in a new system and have the capability to refuel and fix them. Those survey ships can be bigger than 1000 tons, I believe.

If you're new to the game, it is very strongly suggested (and I'd mirror that suggestion) that you start a trans-newtonian game, instead of the conventional start. Much less headaches, especially if you're still trying to figure out what does what in the game.

--Edit--

Yonder wrote:

I also need to research the mining module. I wonder if it would be better to have a 30,200 ton freighter do it's own mining?)

It is good to experiment, but I'd suggest against this. First, in this game it is generally not a good idea to make single mega ships that do a lot of different things. The argument being: for as long as your mega freighter is mining, its freight carrying capacity, which you paid for, is going unused. While you're freighting anything, its asteroid mining ability, which you paid for, is going unused.

When it comes to pure asteroid mining ships though, I'd also suggest against, for now at least. Unless you give it to yourself for free, by using the SM mode. This game very much applies the KISS principle (keep it simple, stupid). Don't build something just because you can. Build it because you need it. This especially goes for sorium harvesters, asteroid miners, terraforming ships, etc.

Very good advice, thanks Moondragon.

I am slogging through the tutorials now. I think I'll make this my lunch break game at work. Boy, I thought Dwarf Fortress had a steep learning curve.

Last night I came across a little annoyance that I thought I'd go into here. There are several threads about it on the other forum so I think it comes up for pretty much everyone.

When you press the "30 day" button or the other larger time steps after 10-20 years you won't ever get it to actually go forward 30 days. If you are lucky it will go forward 5 days, if not 6 hours or even less. Apparently there are several "interrupt events" like having an unused Research Lab, finding new minerals, or having a ship that is trapped with an order it can't complete.

That's all well and good, but the downside is that the game also stops propagating when these events happen to the computer. Apparently the game AI is set up to process moves in between turns or something like this. You can bring up the event menu "Ctrl F3" to see what these events may be, if you log in as the SM it will show you all of the events that happen to anybody, otherwise you are just seeing your events, but it's still very useful.

Finally, if you check the "Automate Turns" box on the upper-right of the system map the game will start processing the turn again if the interrupt event didn't happen to your Empire, until your requested period of time lapses.

Three hours until I get to play this again!

I need to stop playing this game, it is sucking all of my play time away. Also, I keep restarting, which is not helping things.

So, has anyone re-named any of the Commanders to Goodjers yet?

Can't these guys cure cancer or something with all the work that goes into these kinds of games? The detail is ridiculous

Mex wrote:

Can't these guys cure cancer or something with all the work that goes into these kinds of games? The detail is ridiculous

But it pales when compared to what you could accomplish if you channeled all of the energy you now use to pursue wild sexcapades.

Mex wrote:

Can't these guys cure cancer or something with all the work that goes into these kinds of games? The detail is ridiculous

He tried to, but the UI was so inscrutable that he ended up making a game instead.

Do any of you guys have the particulars of what exactly Conventional Industry does? They seem to be a sort of "Catch-All" for the planets industry, since at the beginning I only had those and was doing mining, construction work, and (I believe) fuel refining with them. There is an option to convert that Conventional Industry to the more specific facilities, but I have just been making new things instead. Is this a mistake? Is it more efficient to first convert these starting factories before building things from scratch?

I searched their forums and the wiki with no luck.

Also on the wiki they refer to "Construction Facilities" but all I saw was "Industrial Capacity," those are the same things right?

Edit: I asked this question on their forums and found out that Conventional Industry has 1/10 the capability of an Industrial Capacity, 1/10 the capability of a mine, and 1/20 of the capability of a Fuel Refinery.

It costs 20 to convert a CI to one of the other three facilities, and 120 to build a facility from scratch. So... Yeah. WAAAAAAY More efficient to begin by converting.

PS. I can also confirm that the 1/10 - 1/10 - 1/20 ratio continues when those capabilities are improved via research.