Aurora III (v 6.21) - The Final Frontier - Hosted by Blue Emu

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Welcome to a new Aurora forum game.

It will be run under game version 6.21, which incorporates all the new changes to crew morale, life-support, propulsion, fuel consumption, and so on. We will be playing with a January 1948 conventional start, no ICBM bases, real-world population, and standard difficulty settings including the Precursors and the Swarm. The Invaders will be off at game start, but will be turned on when we feel capable of putting up a decent defense against them.

On this occasion, I would like to try out the idea of forming an Advisory Council to set policy for the in-game decisions that I will be making.

Naturally, all turn-to-turn decisions must be made by the player hosting the game, otherwise it takes too long to get anything done. But an Advisory Council can still exercise a good deal of influence over the game by setting policy regarding matters such as exploration vs colonization vs consolidation, Naval build-up vs fortification vs infrastructure development, political posture in relation to any other races we encounter, fleet doctrine, tactics and ship design philosophy (missiles vs lasers vs Carriers, large ships vs small, monolithic ships vs modular designs)... that sort of thing. I could also turn over Naval Officer assignment (ie: who gets which ship) to the Navy Minister, Ground Unit assignment to the Army Minister, leave many of the research-queue decisions to the Minister of Technology, leave much of the industrial decision-making in the hands of the Minister of Industry, and so on.

While I play the first couple of years, we can debate the most suitable size and function of the Advisory Council... how many members and which positions, as well as deciding on the limits to their authority. Naturally, there will be no limit to MY authority!

Sign-ups should be made in the thread devoted to that purpose, in the General OT Forum. Very early in the game, there will be no employment for ship's captains, for the obvious and logical reason that we have no ships.

Sign-up thread: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...um-game-The-Final-Frontier-hosted-by-Blue-Emu
 
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So... we begin.

The changes to the game leading up to v6.21 were quite extensive. The Sol system has been heavily updated, to include such features as Trojan Asteroids, Planetoids, additional Moons (especially for the Gas Giants), many new named Comets, and so on. The major new game-play features include Nebulae and Black Holes, crew morale and shore-leave, and many functional changes to life support and propulsion. In particular, fuel consumption is now MUCH higher than before... so Sorium is a much more critical resource than it used to be.

First, a review of our home planet is in order.

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Not too bad. All minerals are present, in quantities of at least 50,000 tons and concentrations of at least 30%. I've seen better... but I've also seen much worse.

We start with only four scientists, distributed across only two specialties: Logistics and Construction. Conspicuously missing is a Power and Propulsion scientist, as well as a Sensor specialist. Oh well... I guess we have to play the cards we're dealt.

We'll start by putting 22 of our starting 25 labs into Trans-Newtonian Technology, the turn-key tech for everything else. It will finish in eight and a half months. The remaining three labs will be handed out, one to each of the remaining three scientists, just to get them employed so that they can start gaining stat boosts.
 
New Brunswick

Today Our Most Noble Emperor and Almighty Overlord announced the foundation of the Imperial Exploration and Survey Agency (IESA) under the benevolent rule of Director Stuckenschmidt. Stuckenschmidt, so far known as high ranking toady and Administrator of the Imperial Privy, said in a first interview, that the task of his office will be to mobilize all financial and intellectual resources to establish a space flight program with the intent to explore all economic opportunities in outer space. And exploit them. Furthermore he seeks to send space ships out of our solar system as soon as possible.

"We are not doing it, because it is simple, but because it is difficult. All we have to fear is fear itself, although it will take blood, sweat and tears. But nothing worth having ever comes easy. Per aspera ad astra.", he said.
 
This early in the game, we can't build anything but Maintenance Supplies, Financial Centers, Infrastructure, Maintenance Facilities and Military Academies. We can also expand our (only) Shipyard, but we can't build more of them. All of that will change in eight and a half months, when we finish researching Trans-Newtonian Technology, which opens up a whole new suite of options.

Out of the above list, several would be useful but only a second Military Academy is really urgent... to increase the rate at which we get new scientists. We desperately need a Power and Propulsion specialist, and we could really use someone who understands Sensors or Missiles.

I'm going to let the factories idle for a month or two to build up some mineral stocks, then start work on a Military Academy.

EDIT:

July 6th, 1948. We have completed a Military Academy, which will double the rate at which new officers (including scientists) are recruited. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot of other stuff that's worth building at this point in the game. We will eventually need everything listed above (Infrastructure, Maintenance Supplies, etc) but there's not a whole lot of point in building them right now.

I'll start another Academy, and expand our only shipyard.
 
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July 21st, 1948. Our decision to start by building additional Military Academies has already borne fruit! Less than a month after the new Academy has entered operation, we receive a new scientist... in a new specialty (Energy Weapons) and with double the bonus (+30%) of our starting scientists (+15%).

September 21st, 1948. We have finished researching Trans-Newtonian Technology. This opens the door to dozens of new research projects, as well as allowing us to build many new types of Installations. Our second Military Academy (to make a total of three) is already half-built, so we will finish constructing it before switching to something else. A Civilian Shipyard is added to the build-queue... naturally, we don't yet have the tech to build any ships, but the sooner we get a Yard finished, the sooner we can start expanding it towards the tonnage required to lay down Freighters, Colony Ships and Troop Transports. Also added to the build-queue are instructions to begin converting some of our 5000 CI (Conventional Industries) into specialized Mines and Factories, which will boost their output by a net +400%. With the Trans-Newtonian tech-tree now opened up, our new Energy Weapons scientist receives orders to drop the make-work project that he had been working on (Large Fuel Tank), and get to work instead on a project within his field of expertise: Infra-Red Lasers.

The bulk of our research effort... 21 labs out of 25... is now directed to Pressurized Water Reactor, the prerequisite tech for our first functional Engine (Nuclear Thermal Engine).
 
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"Reporting in, though I've got to say that my portfolio feels a little light. It's as if... I don't have one." :(

-- SoH, Minister without portfolio
 
The bulk of our research effort... 21 labs out of 25... is now directed to Pressurized Water Reactor, the prerequisite tech for our first functional Engine (Nuclear Thermal Engine).

Diary from the Lab - 26th September 1948

This is interesting. The Trans Newtonian Technology (TNT) have opened up so many new possibilities! I have hear people talking about calculators capable of 1000's of times faster calculations! What we can't reach with this!

And the new minirals discovered!!!

I need to discuss things with a Chemist, but specifically the Sorium looks to have very good responces for our normal processed. Almost like it is a pure refined Petrol!

We must research this in depth to ensure that we get the maximum potential out of the mineral!

Rendap von Rabenstrange
Research Assistant
Institute of Theoretical Physics
University of Copenhagen
 
December 11th, 1948. The other Military Academy has finished, and our officer recruitment rate is now three times as high as it was less than a year ago. Our industrial focus has shifted to building our first Civilian Shipyard, after which we will focus on upgrading some of our existing industries to Trans-Newtonian equivalents.

Each CI (Conventional Industry) gives us one point of Mining, one point of Factory Production, and one point of Fuel Refining capability. Three points total, spread across all three fields. By converting them to specialized Trans-Newtonian industrial plant we will greatly increase their overall output, since each TN Mine produces ten points of Mining, each TN Factory produces ten points of Factory Production, and each TN Fuel Refinery produces ten points of Fuel Refining capability.
 
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I propose that once we get the minimum prerequisite techs researched, we should immediately build some bare-bones Geo-scouts to survey the Sol system for minerals. The most minimalistic cheap-and-cheesy Geo-scout would be a commercial design carrying one engine and one or two Geo-sensors, plus a fuel tank. It would be hopelessly obsolete within ten years... but the same can probably be said for a more complex design, too. If we pre-fab the components in our factories, we can probably throw one together in only three months, once all the needed techs have been researched.

Similarly, we should at least consider building a few cheap one-hold Freighters. They would be nearly useless once our Yards were big enough to build the standard five-hold Freighters, but they would allow us to slowly transfer Automated Mines and Mass Drivers to mining sites and Infrastructure to prospective colony worlds.

We would probably end up scrapping them as soon as we could build some REAL ships... but they might help us get started a few years early, since we wouldn't need to wait for our shipyards to expand first.

Discuss.
 
January 1st, 1949. One year in. We've made a bit of progress in the past year, building two Military Academies and getting a good start on our first commercial shipyard. Only one tech has been researched, but it was a pivotal one: Trans-Newtonian Technology.

January 16th, 1949. Our second tech has popped: Pressurized Water Reactor, which opens up the Nuclear Thermal Engine tech. Our 21 available research labs have been shifted to that. ETA: Late July of this year.

May 16th, 1949. Our first Commercial Shipyard has been finished, and our industrial efforts have switched to upgrading some of our CI to Mines. Once we have a functional rocket engine prototyped, this upgrading work will probably be put on hold temporarily while we pre-fab some engines for our planned Geo-scouts.

May 18th, 1949. Our Naval Yard has been upgraded to 2000 tons capacity. This is still too small to build a really functional Grav-scout, which will probably mass in excess of 4000 tons... so another round of shipyard upgrades has been ordered.

EDIT: I'm getting turn-interrupts already. :p Hopefully, this represents a battle being fought several light-years away, and not an impending invasion of the Earth before we've even built our first spaceship.
 
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July 23rd, 1949. Research completed on Nuclear Thermal Engines. Now prototyping a commercial model. In v6.21, there are no longer separate research-lines of engines such as Military, Commercial, FAC and Fighter. In order to count as Commercial, the engine must have a Thrust Suppression of at least 50% (ie: must produce no more than 50% of nominal power) and a component-size of at least 25 Hull Squares (1250 tons). We are now working on a prototype that just barely meets those qualifications. ETA: early August.

August 10th, 1949. Our commercial engine prototype is complete. Our research is now directed towards Geological Sensors, the last component required to assemble our minimalistic Geo-scout. We have suspended the conversion of CI industries to mines, and started pre-fabbing four of the prototyped engines, in order to speed the construction of the Geo-scouts once the new sensors are also ready.

August 20th, 1949. Our NTE (Nuclear Thermal Engine) pre-build is complete, and our industries have switched back to converting our CI to more modern industrial plant. That project will be interrupted again when our current research finishes, so that we can pre-fab some sensors for the planned Geo-scouts.

Lord Strange (scientist, Energy Weapons researcher) has increased his research bonus to +40% (and +160% within his specialist field). That's almost three times as high as the bonus that the four scientists that we started with have.
 
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Bentley reporting for duty!

What's our short term goals right now? We have any minerals to worry about?

Just caught up and actually I'm all for the cheap civvie freighters to haul around industry. Btw, since the update civilians no longer will use your designs but make their own. This really speeds up the colonization process.
 
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stamasd, graduate of the Earthington Academy of Soil, Rubbish and Ores awaits assignement. Wonders if the Navy had any idea what they were doing when they sent him to study those earthly subjects instead of military command school.
 
Imperial Exploration and Survey Agency
- To boldly go... -

The IESA is pleased with the technological progress, that will soon result in the first basic survey ships in the glorious space fleet. Hence the IESA is searching for daring people to staff these ships. Applications can be submitted at the local Navy Recruitment Center. Bachelors preferred.
 
Imperial Exploration and Survey Agency
- To boldly go... -

The IESA is pleased with the technological progress, that will soon result in the first basic survey ships in the glorious space fleet. Hence the IESA is searching for daring people to staff these ships. Applications can be submitted at the local Navy Recruitment Center. Bachelors preferred.

When is the IESA launching its "meet singles in your area" recruitment campaign?