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[MarcAFK]

Well those i listed are in Memory Alpha, Duranium and corbomite aren't but i'm familiar with them being in star trek, Sorium and mercassium I've never heard of.
EDIT: Anyway, I've put together the military components i'm fairly certain DS9 would contain and it's only around 140,000 tonnes, the remaining 10 million ish tonnes must pretty much be leftover mining and ore processing equipment.
I could simulate that with Massive 360,000 ton hangers equipped with 360,000 tonne asteroid miners.
Also those hangers would be large enough to cram a defiant into.
According to Memory alpha a galaxy class starship is around 4 million tonnes itself, so i'm willing to admit that star trek sizes/weights are pretty much just asspulls.
edit:I could cram 10 million tonnes of maintenance modules into it and still only be able to support a 360,000 ton ship, the failure rate would be absurd though.
Edit: Well i ended up getting some kind of overflow i couldn't identify.
Edit: So I've Restarted My Jupiter game for the third time, having finally gotten to grips with what's actually needed for a working Fuel harvesting operation.
Edit: Uuh, My stevefire.mdb is over 2 Gb, is this normal?

[Sheb]

Sorium
Mercassium

[Metalax]

Edit: Uuh, My stevefire.mdb is over 2 Gb, is this normal?

How many games do you have within the database? It can bloat up quite a bit if you have multiple games, particularly if NPR's have been allowed to expand with no restraint.

I'd suggest deleting any old games from the database that you no longer want, then somewhere on the aurora toolbar is an option for compacting the database, try running that.

[MarcAFK]

Apart from steves 1899 game i had started and ended 3 games, mostly after a few months or years of game time, i guess one of them bloated out for some reason, possibly from that overflow i got during the last game.
I just deleted stevefire.mdb and reinstalled the one from the last patch.

[RedKing]

One thing I've noticed is that once you get a commercial vessel to a certain crew size, it's simply more cost-effective to slap a rec module on it than to design it for a ridiculous crew duration (like 1200 months).

This seems to be mostly true for whenever you want long on-station times and where the ship is very labor-intensive. I designed a mammoth terraforming platform, and saved some 27,000 tons and a shitload of mercassium by using a rec module instead of designing it for 1200 months duration.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Gaia class Terraformer    607,250 tons     3014 Crew     13544.4 BP      TCS 12145  TH 0  EM 0
1 km/s     Armour 1-638     Shields 0-0     Sensors 8/8/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 14    Max Repair 500 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 2   
Recreational Facilities
Terraformer: 20 module(s) producing 0.05 atm per annum


ThermaSens-8 (1)     Sensitivity 8     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  8m km
MagnaSens-8 (1)     Sensitivity 8     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  8m km

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

I wound up not making it an orbital hab, because it would have either had to scale back on the number of terraformers, or the resulting extra weight would have meant my towing speed would be down in the double-digits. As it is, my magneto-plasma tugs can only manage about 250 km/s hauling one of these beasts. The other nice bit is that I could prebuild the terraforming modules and rec module with my factories while the shipyard scaled up for several years. Since those are 87% of the ship's cost, and the resulting megashipyard has a build rate out the wazoo, the final construction time was less than one month. 

I'm really going for the "immobile platform" thing with this current game -- jumpgate constructors, fuel depots, terraformers, asteroid miners -- my tugs are the most important ships I have. And the beauty is that when I upgrade my engine tech I only need to upgrade the tugs.

[The Scout]

Your military needs to be immobile platforms that need to be tugged around. Then I will be impressed.

[Culise]

Technically, it's been done as modular ship design; even in moderation, it offers a lot of advantages as far as space yard capacity, upgrading, and flexibility are concerned, and daisy-chaining modules ended up quickly breaking the game.  Let me see if I can find that thread blue emu made...

Here we go.  It starts simple, but gets silly really fast.  Turns out that in that version, (a) tugs didn't adjust very well for the mass of what they were pulling (that quickly changed), and (b) relativity isn't modeled. 

[RedKing]

Yeah, I remember that thread about the modular designs (missile pod, sensor pod, etc.)

Seemed like a really neat idea, although too much micromanagement for my taste. And obviously the removal of tractor daisy-chaining severely curtailed its effectiveness.

But the fact that a TF can perform specialized orders while tractored means that it's possible. My Janus-class jump constructor basically has a Rover-class tug tethered to it at all times. The ones that pull the big orbital habs can stay tethered indefinitely, because the rec modules keep the crew clock on the tug down to 0, and they don't really have a maintenance clock. And they function as a single TF, making it easy to issue build and movement orders in the same queue without having to go through the trouble of "tractor ship, tow to spot X, detach ship, switch over to the new TF, issue order, wait for order to complete, tractor the ship again and repeat"

I haven't toyed with military platforms, but the idea has merit. Especially for some of the anti-Swarm operations on my horizon -- thinking of cranking out some missile platforms with a crapton of box launchers and fire controls. Lacking engines, they'd have no thermal profile and a relatively tiny magnetic profile. Could tow several of those into position and then use a "bait" ship to draw their attention and get the drones to rush into the kill zone.

[Metalax]

Seemed like a really neat idea, although too much micromanagement for my taste. And obviously the removal of tractor daisy-chaining severely curtailed its effectiveness.

I don't have Aurora on this laptop to check, but I'm fairly sure you still can set up tractor daisy chains.

Still, even if you are limited to a two section ship it still works well with the only real drawbacks being the need to expend somewhat more mass on armour/shielding than a single ship of equivalent size.

[Chattox]

Could someone give me like a checklist of what to do at the start of a game? Things like beginning tech and designs, first moves etc.

[Hanzoku]

Maybe I missed something but...

didn't Steve disable morale checks for all civilian vessels? So outside RP reasons, it isn't necessary to design civilian ships and stations with 100-year crew durations?

[gimlet]

Could someone give me like a checklist of what to do at the start of a game? Things like beginning tech and designs, first moves etc.

Ahh just get in and hack around, you'll screw up your first few starts anyway.  Although I guess I have a FEW notes:
- don't go TOO much deeper in the other construction techs vs economy or you'll be running out of money pretty quick (or leaving factories/shipyards idle for long periods = you could have spent the research on something actually useful instead) (This was how I screwed up my 2nd start, after I got the hang of building a decent mix of mines/factories/labs/asteroid miners to expand the economy really fast)
- don't hesitate to use Spacemaster Mode to fix your gross screwups, especially if you're just hacking around on your 1st couple of starts - even from a realism standpoint SOMEONE would have pointed out "uhh sir you designed that ship without any engines" before you spent a year retooling the shipyard for it and building the 1st one...
- to test out combat you can SM mode in a few opposing ships to shoot at so you can figure out the battle controls without losing everything you just spent 5 years building
- give every researcher no matter how awful at least one lab so they have a chance to increase abilities
- build a couple  Space Academy levels fairly soon so you get more scientists, administrators with bonuses, and officers

I pretty much went through the tutorial, such as it was   and built the couple of beam ships it walks you through.  Then just ran the economy for a while, built geo and jump point exploration ships, explored a few neighboring systems, colonize Mars then Titan and Mercury, etc.  You'll get a feel for what's working and what the bottlenecks are.  Then I did a couple of starts playing with asteroid miners (it's a BIG commitment of tech/shipyard capacity so you wanna know the tradeoffs and how to get them cranking effectively or again, you're wasting a lot of research/build time), terraformers (ditto), sorium harvesters (ditto), and fighters (so cool, so expensive in starting tech I could never justify starting with them ).

I restarted a few times 'cause of some scary error messages, in hindsight they were almost all cosmetic/trivial stuff so I could have kept playing.  It's not SO awful to screw up the economy and recover a few times, or even to get your fleets vaporized a few times learning combat, as long as you can protect Earth you can *usually* rebuild your way back on top.

Techs, play around, in general I liked to start with a mix of construction/research/economy increases, one beam weapon (meson, laser or gauss) and associated turret/tracking stuff for point defense, a little bit of engine, a little bit of missile stuff, a little bit of various kinds of sensors and fire controls.  Meta game a bit by filling in what your researchers suck at.  Use your factories to build a mix of more factories, mines/automines, labs, Space Academy levels and eventually ship parts to speed up ship building.   Look at mineral usage  to see what you'll be hitting shortages of and plan on how to mine more - moving automines to asteroids/comets, mining ships, colonizing moons and moving population and mines, whatever - it takes years to get that stuff going so start planning ahead.  Play with getting colonies started and moving population and structures to them and getting them terraformed (can easily take a couple of decades without a big commitment to fleets of huge terraforming ships).

[Flying Dice]

- give every researcher no matter how awful at least one lab so they have a chance to increase abilities

Stat increases for commanders are not (or possibly not wholly) determined by whether they're assigned to something, hence the "so and so has increased their research bonus despite not being assigned to any project" messages.


As for weapons choices, missiles are essentially the unopposed master of naval combat, barring a few situations dependent on encountering certain things at certain tech levels. When designing your missiles, ensure that the warhead strength is a square number. The way armor works is such that each successive square is the point at which an additional layer is penetrated.

For E/KW, Gauss cannon are the ideal PD weapon, barring very high tech lasers, and their tech is used in CIWS design. Their size reduction modifiers also makes them one of the practical non-missile weapons for fighters.

The various other E/KW have differing attributes, but lasers and mesons tend to be the optimal primary and secondary EW for offense, the former in no small part because of their damage profile (a single deep column of damage), though equivalent tech railguns have better damage at extreme range. Railguns are generally only better in cases where the enemy has enough armor to prevent your lasers from penetrating. Lasers are IMO the best anti-Swarm weapon, and are also notably better in a PD role against Invader torpedos than anything else. Mesons are critical for taking down the latter, as well, and are generally useful against anything that you can close with.

On another note, I'm finally back in the saddle with a fresh campaign. feelsgoodman.jpg

Code: [Select]

Serenity class Missile Frigate    7,500 tons     154 Crew     1454.4 BP      TCS 150  TH 600  EM 0
4000 km/s     Armour 7-34     Shields 0-0     Sensors 55/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 13     PPV 23.4
Maint Life 2.39 Years     MSP 364    AFR 150%    IFR 2.1%    1YR 87    5YR 1310    Max Repair 105 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Spare Berths 1   
Magazine 432    Cryogenic Berths 200   

200 EP Internal Fusion Drive (3)    Power 200    Fuel Use 45%    Signature 200    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 530,000 Litres    Range 28.3 billion km   (81 days at full power)

Size 3 Missile Launcher (50% Reduction) (12)    Missile Size 3    Rate of Fire 90
X/O Rail-3 (12)    Missile Size 3    Hangar Reload 22.5 minutes    MF Reload 3.7 hours
Missile Fire Control FC138-R16 (1)     Range 138.6m km    Resolution 16
Broadsword-3 I (144)  Speed: 20,000 km/s   End: 97.9m    Range: 117.4m km   WH: 4    Size: 3    TH: 140/84/42

Active Search Sensor MR103-R80 (1)     GPS 8400     Range 103.3m km    Resolution 80
Active Search Sensor MR9-R1 (1)     GPS 84     Range 9.2m km    Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH5-55 (1)     Sensitivity 55     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  55m km

ECCM-2 (1)         ECM 20

[Metalax]

Maybe I missed something but...

didn't Steve disable morale checks for all civilian vessels? So outside RP reasons, it isn't necessary to design civilian ships and stations with 100-year crew durations?

Yes, with the exception of geosurvey ships which still need a good deployment time. Also if you have any civilian ships accompanying your fleets in their fleet train, you will want to give those decent deployment times as well otherwise you can get caught in the situation of being delayed waiting for them to acknowledge movement orders in combat.

- give every researcher no matter how awful at least one lab so they have a chance to increase abilities

Stat increases for commanders are not (or possibly not wholly) determined by whether they're assigned to something, hence the "so and so has increased their research bonus despite not being assigned to any project" messages.

You do get some increases without them being assigned, but I believe Steve confirmed a while back that they do gain increases faster if they are assigned to a lab.

As for weapons choices, missiles are essentially the unopposed master of naval combat, barring a few situations dependent on encountering certain things at certain tech levels.

Of course when you encounter Nebula, all those missiles are rendered useless.

[MarcAFK]

Could someone give me like a checklist of what to do at the start of a game? Things like beginning tech and designs, first moves etc.

- to test out combat you can SM mode in a few opposing ships to shoot at so you can figure out the battle controls without losing everything you just spent 5 years building

Wait, how? This would be really useful to me.