C# Aurora

[Steve Walmsley]

I did find a genuine alien race orbiting a neutral planet and tried to initiate diplomacy but no one on the forums there had a definitive 'do this' to remedy the issue - the difference here between a fully built fully understood published title and aurora is there is no 'if you do this that will happen' - having played many a RTS or 4x game it would be nice to know 'to initiate diplomacy build a diplomatic ship and approach the alien between 5-10m kilometres and press the diplomacy button' not 'this didn't work for me' or 'what I did was XXX but in the next game it didn't' which is why I put it down til now - in the end it came down to attacking them but they had longer range missiles than me - many scouts and experimental design ships were lost that day until I worked out a missile with a booster rocket

Here are the diplomacy rules:

• Diplomacy Part 1: Basic Framework
• Diplomacy Part 2: Intrusion into NPR Territory
• Diplomacy Part 3: Claiming Systems from NPRs
• Diplomacy Part 4: NPR vs NPR Claims
• Diplomacy Part 5: Restrictions on NPR Claims
• Diplomacy Part 6: Independence
• Diplomacy Part 7: Banned Bodies
• Diplomacy Part 8: Diplomatic Ships

Here is a general rules reference:
https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10666.0

[undercovergeek]

I did find a genuine alien race orbiting a neutral planet and tried to initiate diplomacy but no one on the forums there had a definitive 'do this' to remedy the issue - the difference here between a fully built fully understood published title and aurora is there is no 'if you do this that will happen' - having played many a RTS or 4x game it would be nice to know 'to initiate diplomacy build a diplomatic ship and approach the alien between 5-10m kilometres and press the diplomacy button' not 'this didn't work for me' or 'what I did was XXX but in the next game it didn't' which is why I put it down til now - in the end it came down to attacking them but they had longer range missiles than me - many scouts and experimental design ships were lost that day until I worked out a missile with a booster rocket

Here are the diplomacy rules:

• Diplomacy Part 1: Basic Framework
• Diplomacy Part 2: Intrusion into NPR Territory
• Diplomacy Part 3: Claiming Systems from NPRs
• Diplomacy Part 4: NPR vs NPR Claims
• Diplomacy Part 5: Restrictions on NPR Claims
• Diplomacy Part 6: Independence
• Diplomacy Part 7: Banned Bodies
• Diplomacy Part 8: Diplomatic Ships

Here is a general rules reference:
https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10666.0

Thank you for that Steve - that's awesome on my next play thru I know where to go

[undercovergeek]

I did find a genuine alien race orbiting a neutral planet and tried to initiate diplomacy but no one on the forums there had a definitive 'do this' to remedy the issue - the difference here between a fully built fully understood published title and aurora is there is no 'if you do this that will happen' - having played many a RTS or 4x game it would be nice to know 'to initiate diplomacy build a diplomatic ship and approach the alien between 5-10m kilometres and press the diplomacy button' not 'this didn't work for me' or 'what I did was XXX but in the next game it didn't' which is why I put it down til now - in the end it came down to attacking them but they had longer range missiles than me - many scouts and experimental design ships were lost that day until I worked out a missile with a booster rocket

Here are the diplomacy rules:

• Diplomacy Part 1: Basic Framework
• Diplomacy Part 2: Intrusion into NPR Territory
• Diplomacy Part 3: Claiming Systems from NPRs
• Diplomacy Part 4: NPR vs NPR Claims
• Diplomacy Part 5: Restrictions on NPR Claims
• Diplomacy Part 6: Independence
• Diplomacy Part 7: Banned Bodies
• Diplomacy Part 8: Diplomatic Ships

Here is a general rules reference:
https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10666.0

May I ask then if the diplomacy ship is shit at and destroyed - have my attempts at diplomacy failed and the aliens are sending me a clear signal

Or is it more likely I haven't followed the correct path to diplomacy

[Steve Walmsley]

May I ask then if the diplomacy ship is shit at and destroyed - have my attempts at diplomacy failed and the aliens are sending me a clear signal

Or is it more likely I haven't followed the correct path to diplomacy

I don't remember coding that particular AI response, but it definitely sounds worse than being shot at :)

If the AI takes hostile action, then diplomacy has failed for now. Some alien races are implacably hostile and you can never talk to them. With others, they will become hostile if you spend too long in systems they consider theirs, although they will generally warn you first.

If you back off and haven't done much damage, relations will gradually return to neutral over time.

[undercovergeek]

May I ask then if the diplomacy ship is shit at and destroyed - have my attempts at diplomacy failed and the aliens are sending me a clear signal

Or is it more likely I haven't followed the correct path to diplomacy

I don't remember coding that particular AI response, but it definitely sounds worse than being shot at :)

If the AI takes hostile action, then diplomacy has failed for now. Some alien races are implacably hostile and you can never talk to them. With others, they will become hostile if you spend too long in systems they consider theirs, although they will generally warn you first.

If you back off and haven't done much damage, relations will gradually return to neutral over time.

Never reply and make a hot a beverage at the same time!!

Thank you for responding Steve

[Jarhead0331]

The discussion on diplomacy was timely. In my current game, I have made contact with three alien races. The first appears to be solidly neutral. Both our empires inhabit one system jointly and although it took some time, communications have been established. There have never been any hostile interactions or episodes. I'm not thrilled that they are colonizing a system that I consider to be mine, but since its on my frontier several systems away from my core worlds, I'm tolerating it and using it as a learning opportunity to try to better understand the diplomatic systems in the game. I have a modest flotilla of diplomatic vessels docked in orbit around one of their colonies. I am yet to see our diplomacy rating improve though. It remains at zero.

The second race also appears to be neutral. However, it is actively refusing communications. Some of its vessels have passed through my frontier space, but again there have been no hostile events. Its military vessels had an easy opportunity to attack civilian shipping and survey vessels, but that has not happened yet. I do not know where its colonies are and given that contact is relatively limited, I suspect its core systems are quite some distance away.

Finally, the third race...this one is going to prove problematic for me. I discovered them in a fringe system rich in TN minerals with some very favorable planets for low-cost colonies. Shortly after completing my geological survey of the system my vessel was attacked and vaporized by beam weapons. My naval fleets are composed of vessels of two classes. Triton Class Frigates and Cromwell Class corvettes. Both vessels are beam focused, but unfortunately, since they were designed for system defense, they have limited range and speed that maxes out at about 5000km/s. The hostile vessels have been clocked at around 6800 km/s. Therefore, even if my fleets could operate near this system, we'd never be able to catch them to engage. So, I went on a crash course of designing and building a new ship class of battlecruiser. It has laser batteries, a particle lance and gauss turrets for point defense. It's speed is close to 8000 km/s. It is going to be nearly 2 years before the initial run of vessels is ready for service. Since starting construction, these hostile aliens have discovered my home system. Their strategy and activity in my home system has been interesting making it difficult to determine their intentions. They have only made a very limited incursion with one or two vessels and attacks have been limited to the targeting of a single fuel harvesting station around Uranus. There are hundreds of commercial vessels traveling through Sol, but none have been targeted yet. Its been a game of cat and mouse with my existing defense fleets. I detect the hostile vessel and by the time I get a fleet to their last known location, they're gone.

I could probably use a primer on sensors. I think I understand size and resolution well enough. All my military vessels are equipped with passive thermal, EM and grav sensors, but I seem to have difficulty detecting ships at range.

In any event, I'm hoping this hostile contact does not signal the end of this game. This has been my most successful, expansive and thriving empire to date.

[undercovergeek]

The discussion on diplomacy was timely. In my current game, I have made contact with three alien races. The first appears to be solidly neutral. Both our empires inhabit one system jointly and although it took some time, communications have been established. There have never been any hostile interactions or episodes. I'm not thrilled that they are colonizing a system that I consider to be mine, but since its on my frontier several systems away from my core worlds, I'm tolerating it and using it as a learning opportunity to try to better understand the diplomatic systems in the game. I have a modest flotilla of diplomatic vessels docked in orbit around one of their colonies. I am yet to see our diplomacy rating improve though. It remains at zero.

The second race also appears to be neutral. However, it is actively refusing communications. Some of its vessels have passed through my frontier space, but again there have been no hostile events. Its military vessels had an easy opportunity to attack civilian shipping and survey vessels, but that has not happened yet. I do not know where its colonies are and given that contact is relatively limited, I suspect its core systems are quite some distance away.

Finally, the third race...this one is going to prove problematic for me. I discovered them in a fringe system rich in TN minerals with some very favorable planets for low-cost colonies. Shortly after completing my geological survey of the system my vessel was attacked and vaporized by beam weapons. My naval fleets are composed of vessels of two classes. Triton Class Frigates and Cromwell Class corvettes. Both vessels are beam focused, but unfortunately, since they were designed for system defense, they have limited range and speed that maxes out at about 5000km/s. The hostile vessels have been clocked at around 6800 km/s. Therefore, even if my fleets could operate near this system, we'd never be able to catch them to engage. So, I went on a crash course of designing and building a new ship class of battlecruiser. It has laser batteries, a particle lance and gauss turrets for point defense. It's speed is close to 8000 km/s. It is going to be nearly 2 years before the initial run of vessels is ready for service. Since starting construction, these hostile aliens have discovered my home system. Their strategy and activity in my home system has been interesting making it difficult to determine their intentions. They have only made a very limited incursion with one or two vessels and attacks have been limited to the targeting of a single fuel harvesting station around Uranus. There are hundreds of commercial vessels traveling through Sol, but none have been targeted yet. Its been a game of cat and mouse with my existing defense fleets. I detect the hostile vessel and by the time I get a fleet to their last known location, they're gone.

I could probably use a primer on sensors. I think I understand size and resolution well enough. All my military vessels are equipped with passive thermal, EM and grav sensors, but I seem to have difficulty detecting ships at range.

In any event, I'm hoping this hostile contact does not signal the end of this game. This has been my most successful, expansive and thriving empire to date.

Are they cloaked - I used to have huge detection issues until well within range - I think cloaking reduces their silhouette and this you need a finer sensor to see them - or be very close

[Steve Walmsley]

Diplomatic vessels will improve the alien race's opinion of you. What you see in the Diplomacy and Intelligence window is your opinion of them (which may be improved by their diplomatic ships). You can only infer their opinion of you via the alien race's actions, such as offering treaties, warning messages, or opening fire.

Active sensors will detect any ship with a cross-section equal to or greater than the sensor resolution out to its maximum range. So a sensor with a resolution of 100 and range of 40m km will detect ships of 100 HS (5000 tons) out to 40m km. 

If the cross-section of the target (TCS) is smaller than the resolution, the range is Max Range * (TCS/Resolution)^2. So a target of 1000 tons (TCS 20) would be detected by the same sensor at 40m km * (20/100)^2 = 1.6m km.

Sensors with higher resolutions will have greater range, but struggle to detect small targets. For this reason, it is useful to have multiple active sensors with different resolutions to detect larger ships, fast attack or fighters and missiles. (maybe 120, 20, 1 or 100, 10, 1).

A ship may have a cloaking device that reduces its cross section. So a 10,000 ton ship with a 90% cloak will be treated as a 1000 ton ship by active sensors (at least until you damage the cloak).

[Jarhead0331]

Do the effects of diplomatic vessels stack? In other words, do I benefit from having more than one and does it matter where they are stationed?

Thanks.

[Steve Walmsley]

Do the effects of diplomatic vessels stack? In other words, do I benefit from having more than one and does it matter where they are stationed?

Thanks.

No, they don't stack. For diplomacy during the construction phase, the diplomacy ship with the highest rated commander in a system where both sides are in contact is used for all interactions. It doesn't have to be directly detected by the alien race - it just has to be in a system where both sides can detect a ship or population of the other side.

[Steve Walmsley]

Here is a copy of my post on reddit, regarding the situation with the Aurora forums.

The Aurora forums have been down for about a month. Erik Luken, who has done an amazing job running the forums for many years, has real world concerns that have to take priority. There is currently no timeline for the old forums being restored and, due to potential backup issues, no guarantee they will eventually return intact.

Therefore I have setup some new forums using Discourse - not Discord, which gives some scope for confusion :)

Discourse is more modern software than phpBB so the new forum looks very different and uses new terminology, but is very flexible and easy to use.

This is entirely new, not a reboot of the old forums, so none of the old content will exist.

I have already posted all the patch notes for historical versions of Aurora into a single 'Patch Notes' category (what Discourse calls a forum), with each version read as a single topic (collection of posts). I've also added the downloads for the full install and latest patch, plus my latest v2.8 AAR. The rest of the content will be built up by new posts.

Discourse uses an automated 'trust level' system to set user permissions and access, so you can get used to the forums gradually. I can override that as required, but the main effects are no private messages, limited attachments and no visibility of chat channels when you first join. You can still read, post and reply normally. That initial restriction will pass fairly quickly, but it limits the effect of spam accounts.

The new forums can be found at aurora4x.com

The welcome post explaining the various categories is at: https://aurora4x.com/t/welcome-to-aurora-4x/5

After you register, I will need to approve the accounts, which will take a few minutes if I am online and probably a few hours otherwise. I might lift this restriction in a few days.

I hope the new forums can become as useful and entertaining as the old ones

[Jarhead0331]

I've been following this situation. Sorry about the demise of the old forum. It's such a loss since there was such an amazing wealth of collected information and knowledge there. Over the years, I've thought about starting over here too, but the thought of losing the archives is too upsetting to me. So many good times and such good memories.

I'm sure the new site will thrive just like the old. Please let me know if I can help in any way.

[Steve Walmsley]

Yes, they have been up for a very long time. I managed to recover almost all the patch notes for the older versions from wayback machine, so all the 'documentation' is already on the new site, and my own campaign reports are always written in Word first, so I have all of that too. It will just take some time to put them in the new forum.

However, there was a huge amount of campaign reports from many different players on the old forums. I know some have been getting them from wayback machine too, but the risk is that most of that will be lost. The mechanics posts and change discussion posts had a lot of the rationale for various changes throughout the years so I may tried to recover some of those too. Hopefully, the many great suggestions that were made but not yet implemented will make their way on to the new forums.

On the other hand, it takes away the reason not to move to newer software, so it gives something of a fresh start and a clean-up of anything that is no longer relevant. Plus I believe this new format will be easier for new players to navigate. I have posted a new campaign report and the first new suggestions are being added to the next version, so the new forums already have material that was never posted on the old forums. I can only hope it grows from those small beginnings into something that resembles the size and scope of Erik's forums.

[Geezer]

Thinking of getting back into this after a long layoff.  Is there a resonably recent tutorial series to help an old player return?

[Jarhead0331]

Thinking of getting back into this after a long layoff.  Is there a resonably recent tutorial series to help an old player return?

Yup...Space Marine has some that are less than a year old and they are made from the current build 2.7.1.

https://www.youtube.com/@DefranStrategy/videos