Revision as of 13:00, 31 January 2019

Installations

Cargo Shuttle Station

Load/Unload Cargo: Part of the background in C# Aurora will be that large TN ships function only in space and cannot move any closer to planetary bodies than low orbit. Small craft below a limit of 500 tons, such as fighters and shuttles, are capable of landing on planets. Ship are built in orbit and habitats are assembled in orbit. Only fighters can be built on the ground.

Because large ships cannot land on planets, a freighter or colony ship cannot load / unload unless it has at least one Cargo Shuttle Bay, or the target population has either a Spaceport or a Cargo Shuttle Station (new installation, 1200 BP). Spaceports and Cargo Shuttle Stations can service any number of ships simultaneously but they do not stack. In effect they count as a single Cargo Shuttle Bay for any ship at the population.

All races start with conventional shuttles available for their cargo shuttle bays and stations. Conventional shuttles do not reduce loading time but do enable cargo deliveries to planets without Spaceports or Cargo Shuttle Stations. Three levels of advancement in shuttle technology are available.

All bays and stations use the new shuttles once they are available.

Base cargo load times have been reduced by about 45% for all situations (36s per cargo point to 20s per cargo point and 18s to 10s per colonist), which means a ship with a standard cargo bay and a single Cargo Shuttle Bay with TN Shuttle tech will take slightly longer than the same ship with a cargo handling system in VB6.

This will affect troop transport in a different way and that will be covered in a separate post. Date 10.12.2017

Resupply: In C# Aurora, resupply is no longer instant and ships cannot without cargo shuttles cannot exchange maintenance supplies in space. A ship can only resupply at a spaceport, a cargo shuttle station or from a ship with cargo shuttles.

Maintenance supplies are transferred at the rate of 10 per hour, multiplied by the number of cargo shuttle bays and the racial shuttle technology. Spaceports and cargo shuttle stations can resupply an unlimited number of ships simultaneously. However, the ships being resupplied must be stationary.

Resupply order types will be adjusted to deal with the new requirements. Maintenance supplies can be transferred by supply ships during each movement increment as time passes until the target ship has reached capacity (in the same way as underway replenishment of fuel).

Date 02.09.2018

Construction Factories

The rules on construction factories building spacecraft are changing in C# Aurora. Any class with a Structural Shell instead of armour is classed as a Space Station.

Space Stations can be built by construction factories at any population that includes a Spaceport. Note this means you no longer need an orbital habitat in order to use construction factories, which means you can create huge deep space logistical bases, terraforming stations or small observation platforms, or anything in between, using construction factories.

23.02.2018

Deep Space Tracking Stations

The C# Aurora passive sensor model substantially improves small passive sensors, particularly against small signatures, while dramatically reducing the benefits of creating large numbers of deep space tracking stations. Date 11.06.2017

Forced Labour & Mining Camps

As part of the ground combat overhaul, Forced Labour ground units will be removed. They will be replaced by two new installations; the Forced Labour Construction Camp and the Forced Labour Mining Camp. These each cost 40 BP to build and have the same output as a construction factory and a mine respectively. Transport size is 100,000 cargo points, or 4x that of a construction factory.

Forced Labour Camps can be built at any population, not just occupied ones. However, they consume 100,000 population and instantly cause 5 points of unrest. Once built they only require 5000 population to man them (serving as overseers), as the bulk of the workers, plus associated basic survival-level infrastructure, is provided during construction.

This installation has a few different uses. Making an conquered population productive is one, as you can build three of these for a single construction factory or mine cost, offsetting much of the production modifier penalty for occupation status. You can achieve more overall production in one of your own colonies for lower cost, if you are prepared to accept the unrest penalty, or you can build these in occupied populations and ship them to your own colonies.

Finally, because they have a minimal requirement for a supporting population, you can move them to a hostile world using only a small amount of infrastructure for the overseers. In effect, you can create the Dilithium mines of Rura Penthe if you wish. There are role-playing consequences, as you may not want to play the type of empire that convert its citizens into slaves and sends them to mine asteroids.

Labour Camps are affected by all the production modifiers that affect construction factories and mines (such as radiation, unrest, economic and political modifiers, etc.), although their cheap build cost allows you to offsets these modifiers with triple production. The transport requirement take into account the number of integral workers and supporting infrastructure. However, you could ship the potential workers as colonists (in a quarter of the tonnage) and create the Forced Labour Camp at the desired location.

While Labour Camps might seem low cost and tempting, they do have drawbacks. The large transport size means you could use the same freighter lift for 4x as many mines or construction factories. In addition, the 100,000 population cost is actually much higher in reality as you lose all the potential future growth & wealth provided by that population. They will be suitable in certain situations though; where you need to ramp up production and have excess population to support it, if you don't want to wait for a conquered population to improve its political status or you need a fast way of producing an equivalent to automated mines.

The unrest penalty for creation might be a little low so I will see how that works in play-test. Date 20.12.2017

Genetic Modification Centre

Genetic Modification Centres now produce one million conversions per year (250k in VB6). They also require 250,000 workers (zero in VB6). date 20.10.2018

Ground Forces Construction Complex

For C# Aurora, the Ground Force Training Facility becomes the Ground Force Construction Complex. They remain the same size as a research facility and now require one million population to operate.

The build rate for the complex starts at 250 BP per year and can be increased through research. For example, 500 BP per year is 8000 Research Points and 1000 BP per year is 60,000 Research points.

These changes reflects the amount of effort that will be required to construct, train and support the new ground forces.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg110520#msg110520 Date 27.01.2019]

Infrastructure

Low Gravity Infrastructure

Underground Infrastructure is replaced with Low Gravity Infrastructure (or LG-Infrastructure). This will be built and transported in the same way as regular infrastructure, except it will be more expensive - probably 6 BP instead of 2 BP.

Any low gravity bodies (below the minimum gravity of the colonising species) will now have a normal colony cost calculation (based on atmosphere, temperature, pressure, etc.) and an 'LG' suffix will be added. For any bodies with an LG suffix, the maximum supported population will be based on the available LG-Infrastructure.

For example, for a colony cost 2.00 world you need 200 infrastructure per 1m pop. For a colony cost 2.00(LG) world, you will need 200 LG-Infrastructure per 1m pop and normal infrastructure will have no effect.

Both normal infrastructure and LG-Infrastructure can be used on a world with gravity in the tolerable range. Worlds with gravity above max species gravity will not be colonizable.

Civilian infrastructure production on a low gravity world will be LG Infrastructure, produced at one third of the normal rate (same overall cost). Trade in infrastructure will be low gravity to low gravity or acceptable gravity to acceptable gravity .

I believe this change will maintain the concept of colonising low gravity bodies at a higher cost but will be a lot cleaner and easier. Date 06.12.2018

Maintenance Facilities

Basics

please refer to C-Ship-Maintenance

Box Launcher Reloading

In VB6 Aurora, box launchers can be reloaded in a hangar or at maintenance facilities. For C# Aurora, box launchers can only be reloaded in a hangar, or at an Ordnance Transfer Point (a Spaceport, Ordnance Transfer Station or Ordnance Transfer Hub).

Because of the changes to maintenance facilities in C# Aurora, it will be a lot easier to forward deploy facilities for full-size warships, both on planets and in space, which would increase the potential of box launchers if they could still use those facilities to reload, especially given they are immediately available in C#. The introduction of ordnance-specific facilities for C# provides a good alternative.

Date 28.07.2018

Military Academy

Commanders can be assigned as an Academy Commandant on any population with at least one military academy. Any type of commander can be assigned with the following restrictions:

1) A civilian administrator must have an Admin Rating equal or greater than the number of military academies at the population
2) A scientist must have a Research Administration rating (new bonus for C# which is the max number of labs) at least five times the number of military academies at the population
3) A naval or ground forces officer must have a rank (with 1 being the lowest rank) at least equal to the number of military academies

The normal distribution of new commander types from the academy is 60% Naval, 25% ground, 8% Admin, 7% Scientist.

While a Commandant is assigned, a check is made to see if an commander of the same type as the Commandant is generated. If the check fails, the normal distribution is followed. The chance is 14% for a Scientist Commandant to generate a Scientist, 16% for an Administrator Commandant to generate an Administrator, 40% for a Ground Forces Commandant to generate a ground forces officer and 80% for a Naval Commandant to generate a naval officer.

When a new commander is generated, a check is made to see which bonuses he receives. If the Commandant has at least 20% in any percentage-based bonus or 150 for crew training / ground unit training, all commanders graduating from the academy at that population will take two rolls for each qualifying bonus, and use the higher of the two results. If the Commandant is a scientist, there is a 25% chance any scientist from that academy will have the same research specialisation. If that check fails, the research specialisation will be chosen randomly (as normal).

This new rule should allow specialisation of academies on different worlds. Don't forget that you can set up a military academy on any colony, not just those with a population. Date 06.09.2017

Naval Headquarter

An Admin Command can be created at a population with a Naval Headquarters (a new installation). Each level of a Naval Headquarters costs 1200 BP and can be moved with the same cargo requirement as a research facility. Naval Headquarters function in a similar way to Sector Commands, with each doubling of the level adding +1 to the command radius. For example, level 1 has a Radius of 1, level 2 has a radius of 2, level 4 has a radius of 3, level 8 has a radius of 4, etc.. The command radius of the Admin Command is based on the Naval Headquarters in which it is based (with modifications for certain types of Admin Command). A single Naval Headquarters can support multiple Admin Commands. Date 01.08.2018

Ordnance Factory

Fighter Pods are ordnance, in exactly the same way as missiles. They are built by ordnance factories, transported in magazines and loaded onto fighters. Date 22.09.2018]

Ordnance Transfer Station

In C# Aurora, transferring ordnance is no longer instant and ships without specialised equipment cannot exchange ordnance in space. A ship can only receive ordnance at a Spaceport, an Ordnance Transfer Station, a ship with a Ordnance Transfer System, a base with a Ordnance Transfer Hub or in a military hangar bay. Spaceports, Ordnance Transfer Stations or Ordnance Transfer Hubs will always use the highest tech ordnance transfer rate and can transfer ordnance to or from an unlimited number of ships simultaneously. However, the ships involved must be stationary.

Ordnance Transfer Stations are a new installation with a cost of 1200 BP. They do not require workers and can be moved by freighters. They have a transport size equal to 10 factories. Essentially, they are a cut-down version of a spaceport intended to facilitate ordnance transfer in forward areas, transferring ordnance between the surface of a planet and ships in orbit. They have no bonuses for loading or unloading cargo. Date 17.09.2017

The existing 'Load Ordnance from Colony' order will remain but can only be used at colonies that have either a Spaceport or an Ordnance Transfer Station. On arrival, the fleet will receive ordnance until all its magazines are full, or the colony runs out of appropriate ordnance. All ships in the fleet will be receive ordnance, including colliers. Once completed, the fleet will move on to its next order. Multiple spaceports or ordnance transfer stations at the colony will not increase the rate of ordnance transfer.

The 'Unload Ordnance to Colony' order also remains but can only be used at colonies that have either a Spaceport or an Ordnance Transfer Station.

Any order involving the transfer of ordnance to or from a colony or ordnance transfer hub will use the current racial ordnance transfer tech to determine the rate of transfer.

Note this means that significantly more planning will be required in this version of Aurora to ensure missile-armed ships can be reloaded at the frontier. It will no longer be possible to dump ordnance on the nearest available rock. Colonies will require a spaceport or an ordnance transfer station before they can support missile-armed fleets. Date 16.07.2018

For C# Aurora, box launchers can only be reloaded in a hangar, or at an Ordnance Transfer Point (a Spaceport, Ordnance Transfer Station or Ordnance Transfer Hub). Reloading at an Ordnance Transfer Point is 10x slower than in a hangar (similar to the penalty for maintenance facilities in VB6 Aurora). Date 28.07.2018

Planetary Defence Center

Planetary Defence Centres (essentially a ground-based ship) will not exist in C# Aurora. They will be replaced by a much more detailed ground-combat system, including ground units capable of engaging ships within energy range of the planet. Date 26.12.2017

Refuelling Station

Refuelling Stations are a new installation with a cost of 1200 BP. They do not require workers and can be moved by freighters. They have a transport size equal to 10 factories. Essentially, they are a cut-down version of a spaceport intended to facilitate refuelling in forward areas, transferring fuel from the surface of a planet to the waiting ships. They have no bonuses for loading or unloading cargo. A ship can only refuel at a Spaceport, a Refuelling Station, a ship with a Refuelling System or a base with a Refuelling Hub. Spaceports, Refuelling Stations or Refuelling Hubs will always use the highest tech refuelling rate and can refuel an unlimited number of ships simultaneously. However, the ships being refuelled must be stationary. Date 20.07.2017

The existing 'Refuel from Colony' will remain but can only be used at colonies that have either a Spaceport or a Refuelling Station. On arrival, the fleet will be refuelled until all its tanks are fuel, or the colony runs out of fuel. All ships in the fleet will be refuelled, including tankers. Once completed, the fleet will move on to its next order. Multiple spaceports or refuelling stations at the colony will not increase the rate of refuelling.

The 'Unload 90% Fuel to Colony' order now becomes 'Transfer Fuel to Colony'. Any class designated as a tanker can transfer fuel to any colony with either a spaceport or a refuelling station. The transfer is done at the refuelling rate of the tanker. If multiple tankers are in the fleet, they can transfer fuel simultaneously. Note this means that more planning will be needed in this version of Aurora to ensure fleets can be refuelled at the frontier. It will no longer be possible to dump fuel on the nearest available rock. Colonies will require a spaceport or a refuelling station before they can support fleets. Date 01.07.2018

Shipyards

Shipyards in VB6 require one million workers as a base, plus 100 workers for each ton of capacity in naval shipyards and 10 workers for each ton of capacity in commercial shipyards.

For C#, the base requirement is removed. Instead, naval shipyards will require 250 workers for each ton of capacity and commercial shipyards will require 25 workers for each ton of capacity. This is intended to bring shipyards in line with other major industry sectors such as construction factories, mines and research facilities

As an example, here are the shipyards from my current test campaign with the old and new requirements:

http://www.pentarch.org/steve/Screenshots/SYWorkers.PNG

Date 27.01.2019

for changes in the shipyard-tasks see C-Shipyard Tasks

Spaceport

A ship can only refuel at a Spaceport, a Refuelling Station, a ship with a Refuelling System or a base with a Refuelling Hub. Spaceports, Refuelling Stations or Refuelling Hubs will always use the highest tech refuelling rate and can refuel an unlimited number of ships simultaneously. However, the ships being refuelled must be stationary. Spaceports have doubled in cost to 2400 BP (new 3600) but can now be moved by freighters. They are equal to four research facilities for transport purposes (or 80 factories). They retain their existing bonuses to loading and unloading cargo. Date 20.07.2017

The existing 'Refuel from Colony' will remain but can only be used at colonies that have either a Spaceport or a Refuelling Station. On arrival, the fleet will be refuelled until all its tanks are fuel, or the colony runs out of fuel. All ships in the fleet will be refuelled, including tankers. Once completed, the fleet will move on to its next order. Multiple spaceports or refuelling stations at the colony will not increase the rate of refuelling.

The 'Unload 90% Fuel to Colony' order now becomes 'Transfer Fuel to Colony'. Any class designated as a tanker can transfer fuel to any colony with either a spaceport or a refuelling station. The transfer is done at the refuelling rate of the tanker. If multiple tankers are in the fleet, they can transfer fuel simultaneously. Note this means that more planning will be needed in this version of Aurora to ensure fleets can be refuelled at the frontier. It will no longer be possible to dump fuel on the nearest available rock. Colonies will require a spaceport or a refuelling station before they can support fleets. Date 01.07.2018

A ship can only receive ordnance at a Spaceport, an Ordnance Transfer Station, a ship with a Ordnance Transfer System, a base with a Ordnance Transfer Hub or in a military hangar bay. Spaceports, Ordnance Transfer Stations or Ordnance Transfer Hubs will always use the highest tech ordnance transfer rate and can transfer ordnance to or from an unlimited number of ships simultaneously. However, the ships involved must be stationary.

Spaceports have increased in cost to 3600 BP but can now be moved by freighters. They are equal to four research facilities for transport purposes (or 80 factories). They retain their existing bonuses to loading and unloading cargo. Date 17.09.2017