Ad Astra! ... an Aurora Forum Game, run by blue emu

[blue emu]

If it knew to flee when you were billions of kms away, perhaps it's a Prix take on an AWACS ship? Either that, or there's another Prix ship with sensors near the jump point, or the Prix are cheaters. If it is an AWACS ship, that would explain it keeping its distance.

Well... that captured Prix 250,000,000 range active sensor must be detectable an awful long way away, to any race at their tech level.

Our first two Rock-III decoy vessels have been completed. Twenty layers of armor and 5625 kps speed.

[calestos]

We are now only 1500 points short of a tech-sharing treaty with the Charlies. Excavations on El Dorado continue. I've been shipping the loot to the adjacent colony of Sigma Draconis, just to avoid having it destroyed by killer robots. I have also evacuated our colonists to that system... the Military force, the Engineers, and Governor Nixon are now the only people on the planet.

I figure we've been facing three or four high-tech robotic battalions each time we get attacked. If there's a ten percent chance of attack (just a guess) and we crack two or three vaults at a time (given a sufficiently large stack of Engineers), we can expect to face about 140 attacks, about 14 of them from up to eight opposing battalions, and perhaps one attack of a dozen opposing battlaions.

A greater number of engineers increased speed of discovery?

[blue emu]

A greater number of engineers increased speed of discovery?

Yes. When I stacked ten or a dozen Engineers on the planet, the rate of recovery went up. Similarly, when I assigned ground officers with high Xeno scores to the Engineers, the rate seemed to improve again. We've had as many as four vaults opened in a single five-day build cycle... or as few as none. It's fairly random.

[calestos]

Yes. When I stacked ten or a dozen Engineers on the planet, the rate of recovery went up. Similarly, when I assigned ground officers with high Xeno scores to the Engineers, the rate seemed to improve again. We've had as many as four vaults opened in a single five-day build cycle... or as few as none. It's fairly random.

That's a good new. Before you dig 1 place by month or two months, now you can dig more of five places by month. You only need 30 years

[blue emu]

I have built a pre-fab FAC-base PDC and shipped the components to the Nexus. The components have been assembled by the factories at that colony, and the Combined Fleet (actually, just half of it) is now shipping the five FACs to the Nexus inside the hangars of ESN Etna and ESN Stromboli. The Fleet Ammunition Tender ESNN Cornucopia is transporting 240 of our brand-new size-4 Plasma drive missiles for the base to store in its magazines for use by the FACs, and another 120 each of our brand new Plasma drive size-2 AAMs and size-2 ASMs intended for the FAC-base's own PD launchers. The Nexus will now be defended... at least nominally.

I eventually intend to set up a FAC base, an Airfield, a missile base, a radar base and a bunker on each of our colonies... or at least, on the strategically important ones.

[SteveW]

Oh great avian leader

may i humbly suggest we expand our civillian sector a bit more to support our nessesary expantions to come? economic facilities, some academies to train more of our talented people and more research laps to bring us to equality with the prix.



only thing i dont really think works that well for aurora is the limited beam ranges, i understand it for things like gauss and rail due to the speed of the projectiles but otherwise it is actually one of the greatest little indie games in a long time, would do with a more streamlined interface and some more hints... but it is aweeeeeesum anyways

The main reason for the limited beam ranges is that light travels 1.5 million kilometers in 5 secconds, so if a beam weapon had a longer range than that I would have to track the beam over mutliple increments.

[SteveW]

I'm not sure whether multiple Engineer units dig faster than one... I think I'll build a bunch more and put them on El Dorado, to see if the dig goes any faster. Right now, I'm recovering one site every month or two. More troops would help, too... not that we need more to hold the place against robot attacks, but it might mean more units getting combat experience.

Each Engineer regiments works independently so 5x Engineer means recovering installations 5x as fast, which is useful when you have 1700+

[GaiusC]

Is there boarding operations in this game?

I think it does, but Percursor ships are fast, there isn't much hope of doing it at our level - unless maybe we cripple it so much with nukes that its speed drops massively. But in this case, what do we do, could we repair it or would we have to tug it back to Earth?

Hmmm... as soon as we got that captured Deep Space Tracking System functioning... we detected another Prix ship in the Wolf 294 system!
... he must have been hanging out there all the time. I'm sending for the fleet to abandon its overhaul and come running.

Depending on its equipment, might be this guy that caused all the 30-40 sec increments earlier. He was flying from us, keeping just beyond his own sensor range. And considering he spotted us 1 bio km away, odds are that indeed this bugger spotted us the last time, too.
To catch him, we basically would have to get far bigger tracking stations on the planet, then send a 2 or even 3-pronged attack on him, once he's located. And making sure we fly far enough from him to get into position that he won't detect our 2/3 wings.

Each Engineer regiments works independently so 5x Engineer means recovering installations 5x as fast, which is useful when you have 1700+

Excellent news, I've been wondering this for some time

[blue emu]

So far, our excavations on El Dorado have yielded one research facility, one genetic modification center, two deep space tracking stations, four maintenance facilities, a mass driver, three construction factories, two ordinance factories, two fuel refineries, 19 mines, 17 automated mines, lots of infrastructure, over ten million litres of rocket fuel and a small amount of minerals. Plus three vaults full of killer robots, which we decided not to keep. 1671 more sites to check.

[CptJoker]

So no techs yet? You'd think the aliens would be nice enough to leave a few manuals lying around, at least...

[blue emu]

So no techs yet? You'd think the aliens would be nice enough to leave a few manuals lying around, at least...

No techs yet, although we did find a research lab. They cost 2400 bucks (and 2400 minerals) to build.

The Chix have decided to class us as "Friendly". The Seals have already done so, and the Charlies are our allies, with less than 1000 more points to go before we get a research-sharing agreement.

EDIT:

We now have more Freighters than warships... 32 of them, all upgraded to Plasma-engined Mule-IIIs. This should greatly simplify the logistics of our empire.

[GrimPagan]

I suggest that we stop excavating for now and focus on colonizing. Once we have a large enough population and infrastructure, we rename the planet to Tokyo and release monstrosities every week, which will be destroyed by a bunch of teens in mechanized suits. We will edit the fotage, slap a cheesy name on it, and sell the show across the galaxy, making billions.

It can't fail.

[blue emu]

I suggest that we stop excavating for now and focus on colonizing. Once we have a large enough population and infrastructure, we rename the planet to Tokyo and release monstrosities every week, which will be destroyed by a bunch of teens in mechanized suits. We will edit the fotage, slap a cheesy name on it, and sell the show across the galaxy, making billions.

It can't fail.

Actually, we haven't seen a single Giant Killer Robot in about nine months. Not sure what's up... maybe their batteries ran down?

Found a second research lab. That's pretty cool, because I'm already building three more, as well. It's time to make our move towards higher tech.

EDIT:

Yeah, dumping more Engineers on the planet really speeded up the process of digging all this stuff up.

Here's an indication of just how fast we're unearthing goodies: I've got fourteen fast Freighters (Plasma drive technology) in the Wolf system, working full-time on this project. They don't even try to carry the stuff back to Earth... that would take too long. They just scoop it up off El Dorado so that it won't be destroyed in the next Robot attack, hop through the jump point to the adjacent Sigma Draconis system, dump it on the colony there, and zip right back to El Dorado for another load. We'll sort it out later.

The punch-line... they can't keep up with the rate of digging! I'm unearthing goodies faster than they can be carried to the adjacent system by fourteen rather fast Freighters, and they're starting to pile up on the planet, awaiting shipment. I'm going to have to send another squad of Freighters, to help them carry all the loot.

[GrimPagan]

Can't you have one freighter dumping it on a moon, and the rest carrying it from the moon, back to earth?

[blue emu]

Can't you have one freighter dumping it on a moon, and the rest carrying it from the moon, back to earth?

I suppose there's one spot in the system that I could stockpile it. The most convenient spot won't work, though, because it's a gas giant... I don't think I want to dump the stuff there. With a live Prix ship still in the system, I feel better dumping it in a neighbouring system anyway.

I just got a survey report from the Charlies, telling me about some minerals on a moon in the 82 Eridani system... and I thought "Hang on, isn't that system full of Prix?". So I looked at the system, and sure enough... it's full of wrecked Charlie scout ships. Apparently they sneak a scout in, survey a planet, get blasted to bits by the Prix, and then send in another scout ship. No Prix wrecks, so it seems to be a pretty one-sided affair.

Another six months or so and we can start designing our next generation of warships. I won't be building many... I'm still focussed on our resource expansion... but we might as well make a few decisions. Should we move up from size-4 main armament to size-6? Size-6 is the largest missile size that's still as hard to detect as size-1. Anything larger is more conspicuous on radar. Once we research one more warhead tech, size-6 will also allow us the possibility of upgrading to strength-9 warheads, if we devote 1/4 of the missile displacement to the warhead.

[Inostra]

What about the size of the (future) fighter tubes?

[blue emu]

What about the size of the (future) fighter tubes?

It's a trade-off... bigger means longer range and bigger boom, but also means more weight (and a longer-ranged fire control will add still more weight) and therefore slower Fighters.

[Inostra]

It's a trade-off... bigger means longer range and bigger boom, but also means more weight (and a longer-ranged fire control will add still more weight) and therefore slower Fighters.

Yes, and would transforming the fleets standard tube not also seriously affect that trade-off?

[Jos de trol]

when is the next deprixification? we should stop them jerking around!

[stamasd]

I have a strong suspicion that the Prix in 82 Eridani will be considerably tougher to beat than the ones in Wolf.