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Digital Gaming => Computer Gaming => Topic started by: jamus34 on January 20, 2016, 10:36:19 AM

Title: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: jamus34 on January 20, 2016, 10:36:19 AM
So I started looking into this and it looks like a munchkins dream... 4x space game that kinda claims to be dwarf fortress in space.

Unfortunately I have been unable to get it running yet. Any one have any experience with this?
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: PanzersEast on January 20, 2016, 10:40:56 AM
Doing a play through now.... its been a long time since I played but learning cliff not curve.  There are several LPs out there that will help you get started.  It is a vastly deep game that you will need to commit time to learning and playing.  Kushan is doing some live streaming as well.

I would say to stick with it... there is a lot to learn and do so in small chunks.  I'm still overwhelmed, but it is fun and opens up as you advance.   One of the best space games out there.


PE
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: Jarhead0331 on January 20, 2016, 10:49:44 AM
There are a lot of old threads on this, but I fear they may have been over in the wargamer days. I'm pretty sure GDS-Starfury got fairly far into learning the mechanics of the game.

What's the latest build? Is it still 4.3? Any significant new features added?
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: jamus34 on January 20, 2016, 12:12:38 PM
I think the current patch is up to 7.01.

As stated I just discovered this and having issues installing/getting it to run
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: Millipede on January 20, 2016, 12:33:14 PM
My curiosity has been roused! Unfortunately, I can't download without registering on the Aurora 4X Forum and that doesn't seem to be possible. Does anyone know if this is just a temporary situation?
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: jamus34 on January 20, 2016, 12:45:24 PM
Milli - I was still able to dl the files even though I wasn't registered. I was using chrome and clicking on the link dropped me into a drop box screen and from there I could download the files
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: Jarhead0331 on January 20, 2016, 12:50:49 PM
Quote from: jamus34 on January 20, 2016, 12:12:38 PM
I think the current patch is up to 7.01.

As stated I just discovered this and having issues installing/getting it to run

Wow. Guess its been awhile since I played. LoL.
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: Nefaro on January 20, 2016, 01:25:53 PM
I've noticed a couple different playthrough series started up on YT recently, using latest version.

Been putting off learning the thing, myself.  Expecting continued improvements to it. 

Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: Millipede on January 20, 2016, 01:32:38 PM
Quote from: jamus34 on January 20, 2016, 12:45:24 PM
Milli - I was still able to dl the files even though I wasn't registered. I was using chrome and clicking on the link dropped me into a drop box screen and from there I could download the files
Thanks for the tip. Successfully downloaded, successfully installed (whew!) and fired it up... Holy Jumpin' Petunias!!! Youtube lets play, here I come.
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: jamus34 on January 20, 2016, 01:38:12 PM
Yup, it strangely reminds me of early harpoon games for some reason
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: CptHowdy on January 20, 2016, 01:39:42 PM
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,5663.0.html

use above link for full installer. much easier. enjoy.
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: Rayfer on January 20, 2016, 02:54:30 PM
Watched some youtube videos....haven't played the game but the video's remind me of WitP:AE in complexity and depth!! And I'm not saying that's a bad thing.
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: bobarossa on January 20, 2016, 02:57:11 PM
I've played it off and on for a number of years and have been playing 6.43 for three months now. When just starting I would suggest turning on the Spacemaster (on first thin window; don't enter a password and you won't need one later).  This allows you can do instant research of items to see how everything fits together when designing ships for the first time (use the "Instant" button that only lights up when SM is on).  When designing a jump engine you kind of need to know how big a ship you want and you may not know that without putting everything together first.  SM is how you can figure this out.  You can then use SM to delete those techs before turning SM off and continuing.

Here is something I wrote up for my brother a few years ago.

If you want to save a game, you need to copy Stevefire.mdb out of the Aurora directory into a save directory.  You can rename it to something (like adding the date/year) but you will have to rename it back before you can use it again.  I've never tried copying it with the game running.  I have heard (in the forums) that if you have too many games in the database, it can slow things down (file reads/writes?).  There is a delete game button somewhere.  Feel free to look at the game that come already in the database to see what ships look like (component wise; use the "Class design" window, 7th from left on System Map). 

When you create Gravity and Geologic sensor ships (to find jump points and minerals, respectively) you can give them default orders that keep you from having to set the individual orders up yourself.  Go the the task force page (9th button from left edge at top of System Map screen, looks like an arrowhead) and click on the special orders/Organization tab (near middle of screen).  The default orders are set on the left side and you can set the primary to "survey nearest planet or moon" and the secondary to "survey nearest asteroid".  Or you can just tell it to "next five system bodies".   For gravitic surveys you need to use the 'survey locations" entry.

Now for some operating tips.  The most important windows are the System Map, the economics window, and the Events window (2nd button from right on the System Map buttons at top).  The System Map and Economics windows both have Time Control buttons near the top.  These tell the game how long of a turn you want to process. 

On the System Map window, there is another line of buttons called the Sub-Pulse Length.  Each "turn" is divided into sub pulses.  The turn consists of somewhere around 10 to 20 of these.  The game will watch to see if something important will happen each sub-pulse and may interrupt your 'turn' to let you know.  Most of these are comments that a Task Force has completed its orders or minerals/jump points have been found.  Sometimes a 'turn' will be interrupted because the Non-Player Empire has done something (is in a battle) and the game needs to slow down to process it correctly.  Nothing shows up in the event window in this case.

The game has something called a construction interval (set on the intro screen, although you may have to hit 'save' or something for it to take effect after the first time).  This is the minimum amount of time the game will wait until it recalculates industrial/shipyard/research output.  I have set my games up for 1 second less than 5 days (431,999 seconds, I think; exactly 5 days worth didn't seem to work correctly).  That way I can expect industrial updates to occur each time I hit the '5-days' button (and it goes 5 full days).  The Events window tells you how much time elapsed and what happened. 
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: Kushan on January 20, 2016, 03:41:38 PM
Been playing this a lot again recently since I saw Quil18s LP on YouTube. I played it on my twitch stream the other day. I was doing ok until one of my exploration ships ran out of fuel. Then I realized I had made a mistake and converted too much of my conventional industry to factories rather then to more mines. Didn't notice I wasn't mining enough until I tried to build a new ship to go refuel my exploration ship. I could have recovered in the long run but with the ship out of fuel it was only letting me do 6 hours ticks, even with auto turn enabled.

Quote from: Millipede on January 20, 2016, 12:33:14 PM
My curiosity has been roused! Unfortunately, I can't download without registering on the Aurora 4X Forum and that doesn't seem to be possible. Does anyone know if this is just a temporary situation?

With all the attention the game has been getting yon YouTube recently the forums have been straining to keep up.

Quote from: bobarossa on January 20, 2016, 02:57:11 PM
If you want to save a game, you need to copy Stevefire.mdb out of the Aurora directory into a save directory.  You can rename it to something (like adding the date/year) but you will have to rename it back before you can use it again. 

I think the current version allows you to have multiple different games. There's now a pull down menu on the launcher that lets you switch between games.
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: bobarossa on January 20, 2016, 04:06:35 PM
That ship that ran out fuel, did it have a default order set for refueling.  I haven't noticed a limit on turn length except for when default orders are present.  You also may trying disabling that message in the event screen's filter (at bottom of window).  I was using the basic download without the launcher.  Saw a lot of people having problems with missing files (dll's) with the launcher so I stuck with what I knew would work.  I was too far into my latest game to start over when 7.00 came out.
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: OJsDad on January 20, 2016, 08:52:24 PM
Quote from: bobarossa on January 20, 2016, 02:57:11 PM
The game has something called a construction interval (set on the intro screen, although you may have to hit 'save' or something for it to take effect after the first time).  This is the minimum amount of time the game will wait until it recalculates industrial/shipyard/research output.  I have set my games up for 1 second less than 5 days (431,999 seconds, I think; exactly 5 days worth didn't seem to work correctly).  That way I can expect industrial updates to occur each time I hit the '5-days' button (and it goes 5 full days).  The Events window tells you how much time elapsed and what happened.

Looks like the default is set to 400,000. 

For 1 second short of 5 days yes, it's 431,999 seconds.
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: Kushan on January 20, 2016, 10:03:29 PM
Quote from: bobarossa on January 20, 2016, 04:06:35 PM
That ship that ran out fuel, did it have a default order set for refueling.  I haven't noticed a limit on turn length except for when default orders are present.  You also may trying disabling that message in the event screen's filter (at bottom of window).  I was using the basic download without the launcher.  Saw a lot of people having problems with missing files (dll's) with the launcher so I stuck with what I knew would work.  I was too far into my latest game to start over when 7.00 came out.

It was on its way to refuel when it ran out. It was in the outer system when the condition to refuel was triggered. Had it set go 40% but that cut it too short. I've had one missing dll error. Happens when I try to open the system menu.
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: jamus34 on January 20, 2016, 10:05:56 PM
Ok, got it running.

Maybe tomorrow I'll actually get to starting a game  :P
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: bobarossa on January 20, 2016, 10:30:52 PM
If you have any default orders when a ship is out of fuel you will get shortened cycles and messages. Very annoying.  I clear them after setting up a rescue ship.  Sometimes I forget to set the default back up after refueling.
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: Sparhawk on January 21, 2016, 12:02:09 AM
I spent several hundred hours on this game while I was between jobs six years ago. It sucked me in so deep I kept a composition book with all my ship and component builds. I just now perused a list of ships I had designed and, oh boy, intense. I'll just say this, you need to get your fire control dialed in, and you better have speed enough to choose your engagement distance without being closed upon. The biggest limitation I came up against was lack of resources enough to maintain a large enough defense fleet even with a several system mining network. Actually probably pretty realistic.
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: OJsDad on January 21, 2016, 09:46:51 AM
I think the made adjustments to resources so your less likely to run out. 
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: spelk on January 22, 2016, 07:09:18 AM
This has me hankering after the old Jeff McBride game of Stars!

http://wiki.starsautohost.org/wiki/Main_Page

My copy won't run under Windows 8 :(
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: Staggerwing on January 22, 2016, 07:44:56 AM
Quote from: spelk on January 22, 2016, 07:09:18 AM
This has me hankering after the old Jeff McBride game of Stars!

http://wiki.starsautohost.org/wiki/Main_Page

My copy won't run under Windows 8 :(

Set up a VM?
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: spelk on February 01, 2016, 12:38:59 PM

Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: Kushan on February 02, 2016, 08:24:47 AM
Thanks for posting spelk.

Episode 02 is now live (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj_ZAEnQQQo)

Created a thread in the Digital AAR's (http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=16056.0) section for all my future videos in this series
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: Boggit on February 04, 2016, 08:31:08 PM
Quote from: spelk on January 22, 2016, 07:09:18 AM
This has me hankering after the old Jeff McBride game of Stars!

http://wiki.starsautohost.org/wiki/Main_Page

My copy won't run under Windows 8 :(
I never played Aurora, but have played Stars! I've just seen Kushan's video and you're right. It looks VERY similar. O0
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: TacticalWargames on February 05, 2016, 10:34:06 AM
Not sure if it's a Win 10 thing or not but I can't get it working. Used to run fine on Win 7.
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: Jarhead0331 on February 05, 2016, 10:45:04 AM
Quote from: TacticalWargames on February 05, 2016, 10:34:06 AM
Not sure if it's a Win 10 thing or not but I can't get it working. Used to run fine on Win 7.

Runs fine on my Win10 rig.
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: CptHowdy on February 05, 2016, 11:02:06 AM
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on February 05, 2016, 10:45:04 AM
Quote from: TacticalWargames on February 05, 2016, 10:34:06 AM
Not sure if it's a Win 10 thing or not but I can't get it working. Used to run fine on Win 7.

Runs fine on my Win10 rig.

runs fine on my windows 10 tablet
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: TacticalWargames on February 05, 2016, 01:54:10 PM
Hmm..not that then. Will look into it. Thanks.
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: OJsDad on February 05, 2016, 02:01:25 PM
Quote from: CptHowdy on February 05, 2016, 11:02:06 AM
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on February 05, 2016, 10:45:04 AM
Quote from: TacticalWargames on February 05, 2016, 10:34:06 AM
Not sure if it's a Win 10 thing or not but I can't get it working. Used to run fine on Win 7.

Runs fine on my Win10 rig.

runs fine on my windows 10 tablet

I don't have a problem running it on two different Win10 devices.  However, on my laptop, it's only a 13" screen, and I have issues with the window sizes on most of the screens.  How have you gotten around that on  your tablet. 
Title: Re: Aurora 4X anyone play
Post by: CptHowdy on February 05, 2016, 08:33:14 PM
Quote from: OJsDad on February 05, 2016, 02:01:25 PM
Quote from: CptHowdy on February 05, 2016, 11:02:06 AM
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on February 05, 2016, 10:45:04 AM
Quote from: TacticalWargames on February 05, 2016, 10:34:06 AM
Not sure if it's a Win 10 thing or not but I can't get it working. Used to run fine on Win 7.

Runs fine on my Win10 rig.

runs fine on my windows 10 tablet

I don't have a problem running it on two different Win10 devices.  However, on my laptop, it's only a 13" screen, and I have issues with the window sizes on most of the screens.  How have you gotten around that on  your tablet.

im running 1280x800. i had to use the option to adjust window heights so it didnt cut off the buttons at the bottom. other than that ive made no adjustments. using a tw802 winbook from microcenter. got it open box for $85.