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[IWishIWereSarah]

And with the small size of fighters meaning high speed, you should be able to use another advantage of missiles : long range.
Basically, keeping the big ship (with the big sensors) clearly out of the range of anytyhing, and launching fighters in the missile range of the enemy (if any). Then, using "low range" missiles (higher than other weapons, low for missiles) from box launchers on maneuverable fighters (that will evade enemy missiles and outrun them to stay out of their other weapons' range) to eliminate the threats.

Theorically. :p

[Rince Wind]

Remember that you don't HAVE to fire all your missiles at once with the box launchers. Even if you only have a single fire control for each relevant range/tonnage, you could shoot 10 missiles at the first enemy, then 5sec later another 10 at the 2nd, then 20 at the big one. You have the added benefit that the 2nd and 3rd salvos have a higher chance of getting through, because the enemy PD/AMM defence has not yet reloaded.

[Metalax]

First and most importantly, on average, how long does it take to have your Aurora forum account activated? Because it's been a couple of weeks now, and I'm tired of entering a captcha every time I need to search for the forums for something not on the wiki. It may not be the most active community, but I'm sure they can help almost as well as you guys can. Also I'd really like to obtain the designer password, because I don't like being hamstrung by things I have absolutely no control over, such as wars on the other side of the galaxy.

Erik Luken is the one to pm about forum account problems on the Aurora forums. He is usually pretty responsive. Also have you made many posts on the forum there, I recall that there was somewhat restricted capabilities for those with less than ten posts, although that may only be with regards to posting links.

Also note that if you have the Designer password and have made any alterations at all to the database you need to state that if you post any bug reports related to that database. If at all possible, even if someone else already gave you the password, pm Steve on the Aurora forums for the Designer password as Steve prefers to keep a note of who has it. The last time someone else started giving it out Steve changed it on the next release.

Third, and this is more of an opinion question than anything, but when designing ships, what weight do you typically shoot for, in regards to class names? Such as cruisers, battleships, and so on. Because I've got 3kT point defense frigates, 6kT area defense destroyers, 10kT beam cruisers, and 35kT beam battleships. I realize it doesn't really make a difference what class name you assign to a ship, but I'd still like to see what might be considered "standard" weight/class assignments. I'm thinking mine may be a bit too lightweight...
Also, the reason I prefer beams to missiles is because for any ship that flings missiles at me, I've usually got more than enough point defense and shielding to exhaust their stores before they can do too much damage_{and also i cant design missiles to save my life}.

I tend to go for much heavier ships than many others do, but here are my typical class sizes.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

FTR Fighter [250 ton]
FTR-H Heavy Fighter [500 ton]
 GB Gunboat [1k ton] - FAC engine
COR Corvette [1k-4k ton]
 FR Frigate [5k ton] - Defensive/special purpose
 DE Destroyer [5k ton] - Offensive
 CR-L Light Cruiser [10k ton]
 CR Cruiser [15k ton]
 CR-H Heavy Cruiser [20k ton]
 CR-B Battlecruiser [25k ton]
 BS Battleship [30k ton]
 DR-L Light Dreadnaught [40k ton]
 DR Dreadnaught [60k ton]
 DR-H Heavy Dreadnaught [80k ton]
 DR-S Super Dreadnaught [100k ton]
MON Monitor [150k ton]
MON-H Heavy Monitor [200k ton]
MON-S Super Monitor [250k ton]
COL Colossus [500k ton]
TTN Titan [750k ton]
LVN Leviathan [1000k ton]

Fighter wings are generally 10 Fighters or 5 Heavy Fighters

 CA-L Light Carrier [10k ton] - 1 wing
 CA Carrier [30k ton] - 3 wings
 CA-H Heavy Carrier [80k ton] - 8 wings
 CA-S Super Carrier [200k ton] - 20 wings
BCA Battle Carrier [20k ton] - 1 wing - extra space goes to weapons/defences.
BCA-H Heavy Battle Carrier [60k ton] - 3 wings - extra space goes to weapons/defences.

[Bremen]

I base my ship designs on number of engines, mostly. Since there's a nice -50% fuel use bonus from max size (2500 ton) engines, I usually use those for all but fighters, and therefor more engines = a larger class.

So a single engine ship would usually be in the range of 6,000-8,000 tons, and would be either a frigate or a destroyer based on intended use (I mainly use frigates as point defense/support ships for fleets, whereas a destroyer would be a dedicated combat ship with either missiles or anti-ship beams). This does sometimes run into trouble when the engines get damaged, but I view it as worthwhile for the considerably increased fuel efficiency.

A two engine ship (~15,000-16,000 tons) is a light cruiser, three engines (~24,000) is a cruiser, and four engines (~32,000) is a heavy cruiser. After that I start using even numbers; 6 engines (~48,000) is a battlecruiser and 8 engines is a battleship (~64,000 or sometimes more, since I often make my battleships slow and heavy). I don't recall ever building anything bigger than a battleship, since I seem to have a lot of trouble actually finding enemies to fight once I get past the early precursor phases. If I did, though, I'd probably extend my system up for dreadnoughts and the like.

[a1s]

Wow, over a kilopage. Anyway, I bought a better monitor, and decided to give this another try. Quick question though: the best version I can find is from mid-2014, has the development stopped or am I just looking in the wrong place/forum?

[NullForceOmega]

Since last I checked, this thread has more content than Aurora's own forums, you can probably find the answers you're looking for here.  Last I heard Steve had decided to move on to Aurora 2, but I haven't gone over there to catch up in at least a year.

[Karlito]

Wow, over a kilopage. Anyway, I bought a better monitor, and decided to give this another try. Quick question though: the best version I can find is from mid-2014, has the development stopped or am I just looking in the wrong place/forum?

The latest version is 6.43 from July, 2014 yes. Steve's post in the changelog for the next version was February of 2015. Development is pretty intermittent. Aurora is just a hobby project for Steve, so there isn't any kind of roadmap for future features, he just adds new stuff whenever he thinks of an idea, and releases a new version when he feels like it. As far as I know, he still makes all his money playing poker, so Aurora only gets worked on when he's flush.

Aurora II is effectively a dead project as far as I know.

[Cyroth]

Third, and this is more of an opinion question than anything, but when designing ships, what weight do you typically shoot for, in regards to class names? Such as cruisers, battleships, and so on. Because I've got 3kT point defense frigates, 6kT area defense destroyers, 10kT beam cruisers, and 35kT beam battleships. I realize it doesn't really make a difference what class name you assign to a ship, but I'd still like to see what might be considered "standard" weight/class assignments. I'm thinking mine may be a bit too lightweight...
Also, the reason I prefer beams to missiles is because for any ship that flings missiles at me, I've usually got more than enough point defense and shielding to exhaust their stores before they can do too much damage_{and also i cant design missiles to save my life}.

Mine are even lighter then yours.
My biggest combat capable ships usually end up at around 15000 tons, 20000 tons tops.
I don't like playing with huge ships because I feel like I'm wasting officers if I do.

Smaller military ships often consist of only a few beam weapons, battlecruiser and larger come in missile or beam variants.
The cheap engine variants also come as minelayer and satellite dispenser versions.

My usual sizes and the names for them: (Copypasta from the Aurora forums)

Military ships:
Fighters: 1 - 500 tons
"Vessel": 501 - 2000 tons (Scout Vessel, Survey Vessel and so on. No combat ships usually have this size)
Corvette: 2001 - 4000 tons (build with fuel efficient or civilian engines as in-system patrol ships)
Frigate: 2001 - 4000 tons ("proper" military ship)
Light Cruiser: 4001 - 7000 tons (build with fuel efficient or civilian engines as in-system patrol ships)
Heavy Cruiser: 4001 - 7000 tons ("proper" military ship)
Battlecruiser: 7001 - 10000 tons
Battleship: 10001 - infinity

Orbital Stations:
Satellite: 0 - 500 tons (military)
Plattform: 501 - 4000 tons (military)
Fortress: 4001 - 8000 tons (military)
Container: 15000 - 30000 tons (armored civilian cargo boxes, to be transported with tugs)
Station/Habitat: "a lot of" tons (massive single-purpose terraform stations or habitats)

Deep space structures: (build from various parts to form stupidly large superstructures)
Light Module: 501 - 4000 tons (military part, often point defense or sensors)
Heavy Module: 4001 - 8000 tons (military part, mostly anti-ship firepower or hangar space)
Core Module: 50000 tons - 150000 (civilian support part)

[AlleeCat]

I can't figure out how to make ships do anything except move and attack. The Fleet Orders screen seems like it's supposed to be used more for combat operations than anything else.

[ndkid]

As far as I know, he still makes all his money playing poker, so Aurora only gets worked on when he's flush.

Nope, Steve went back to the corporate world when he decided a more stable income stream with more stable hours would be better for his family life. He still plays now and then, but it's no longer his main source of income as of... a couple of years ago now, I think.

Aurora II is effectively a dead project as far as I know.

Yep, he never went back to it. And he's never been open to open-sourcing anything, so, really Pulsar is, long-term, likely to be a better project in terms of update regularity and ability for people to hop in and help out.

[exdeath]

As far as I know, he still makes all his money playing poker, so Aurora only gets worked on when he's flush.

Nope, Steve went back to the corporate world when he decided a more stable income stream with more stable hours would be better for his family life. He still plays now and then, but it's no longer his main source of income as of... a couple of years ago now, I think.

Steve worked playing poker.
He decided to spend more time with his family and to archieve that, get another job. So now he works for a big poker website, for the house.

He doenst sell aurora, or request donations, because he said that on his opinion, when he receive money to do something, this thing become a work and at the same time become unfun.

[Lord Shonus]

I can't figure out how to make ships do anything except move and attack. The Fleet Orders screen seems like it's supposed to be used more for combat operations than anything else.

Available orders depend on the capabilities of ships in your selected fleet. Cargo orders won't show up unless you have cargo bays, salvage orders won't show up without salvagers, etc. The sole exception to this is the "transit" commands, because a fleet does not have to have innate jump capability to transit a jump point - jump gates or tenders can handle that.

For example, to load colonists on Earth, select a fleet that contains ships with cryogenic population transpot, then select Earth in the "destination" list. Select the load colonists order. Then select the planet you want to put those colonists on, and select the Unload Colonists order.

[Metalax]

On top of this certain orders will only show up if a ship in the taskgroup has been marked as being of a certain type with the checkboxes on the class design window. Notably several of the fuel loading/unloading orders only show up if a ship has been marked as a tanker.

[Draxis]

Anyone know how to reset the system map to either a certain position or just to default settings?  I zoomed in too far and now the game crashes everytime I open it.

[AlleeCat]

I can't figure out how to make ships do anything except move and attack. The Fleet Orders screen seems like it's supposed to be used more for combat operations than anything else.

Available orders depend on the capabilities of ships in your selected fleet. Cargo orders won't show up unless you have cargo bays, salvage orders won't show up without salvagers, etc. The sole exception to this is the "transit" commands, because a fleet does not have to have innate jump capability to transit a jump point - jump gates or tenders can handle that.

For example, to load colonists on Earth, select a fleet that contains ships with cryogenic population transpot, then select Earth in the "destination" list. Select the load colonists order. Then select the planet you want to put those colonists on, and select the Unload Colonists order.

Oh, silly me. I thought the colony ship would automatically load colonists when it was built. I sent it to Mars without anyone aboard!