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[EuchreJack]

I've been know to sometimes just play with "All jump points have Jumpgates", so I'm on the opposite side of the spectrum than Zangi.

Flying Dice, while your fluff about jump gates as simply stabilizing the existing JP makes significantly more sense than the Stargate theory...I'm just too attached to the Technological Portal of Awe-Inspiring Size.  Sorry.  Reminded of Empire of the Fading Suns more than Stargate, actually.

[iceball3]

I've been know to sometimes just play with "All jump points have Jumpgates", so I'm on the opposite side of the spectrum than Zangi.

Flying Dice, while your fluff about jump gates as simply stabilizing the existing JP makes significantly more sense than the Stargate theory...I'm just too attached to the Technological Portal of Awe-Inspiring Size.  Sorry.  Reminded of Empire of the Fading Suns more than Stargate, actually.

I'm partial to the portal of awe-inspiring size so I may continue to fluff it like that, myself, though Flying Dice does have a point, especially seeing how jump gate construction modules don't use up any resources when used and can be reused.
That said, I'm definitely more of the opinion of being able to destroy, disrupt, or otherwise detonate existing jump gates, simply because if offers more soft-options against an oncoming force, more answers that need to be responded to, as well as letting others disrupt your efforts of travel if you become reliant on jump gates.

[MDFification]

Aurora 2 updates when.

[EuchreJack]

Aurora 2 updates when.

...Pigmen invade Earth?

[Culise]

But yeah, alien gates can either be generated when the system is or placed by NPRs. Having one doesn't mean you have neighbors.

//

Personally I always fluffed jump gate "construction" as being a process which stabilized the JP to allow non-JD-equipped matter to pass through it, rather than literally building a stargate around it. That would also explain why the genned ones aren't everywhere: over the course of tens of thousands of years the stability erodes.

Same here.  It also has the benefit of explaining why you don't need to ship minerals over to the jump point, why you can't find constructed jump gates around unknown jump points by looking for the giant space donuts, and why you can't destroy jump gates by firing at them.

[iceball3]

Aurora 2 updates when.

Well, the original Aurora just updated recently, at least. It's now at version 7.1

[MDFification]

Aurora 2 updates when.

Well, the original Aurora just updated recently, at least. It's now at version 7.1

There's suspicion that v7.2 in coming fairly soon too, so I'm hopeful we'll see something new.

I just want to see either Newtonian physics or an improved UI implemented before I die.

[Mini]

I hear immortality research is progressing?

[Azazass]

Gosh, this is exciting. This is the first system that I've ever visited that isn't Sol!

Ha! Just wait until you meet your first xenos or run into a set of ruins.

I remember when I met my first Xeno scum, I name them the Klat something or the something Klat after their first ship design I ran into, the point being, they were a bunch of jerkish turds. It was an 6.43 version game.

I sent the 1st Armed Exploration fleet, comprimised of 1 jump beam frigate, 1 PD frigate and the other 2 missile frigates, to the last unexplored jump point of Sol. The newly discovered system was Alpha Centauri, a binary system with 8 planets, each with 2 to 5 moons. Just barely 20 seconds after arrival I detect a thermal signature over Alpha Centauri-B II, stronger than any of my ships and a EM even more strong.

I was like "Yes! Finally, aliens! That diplomacy team will actually be useful for something", so activate transponders, assign the team and initiate communications and I give the order to the fleet to go to the nearest planet, Alpha Centauri-B VIII. The fleet was going to take 5 days getting to the planet, plenty of time to establish communications, I thought it was going to be a peaceful encounter.

Oh boy was I wrong.

After a few minutes, the thermal contact turns into 4, and reads a speed of 12000 km/s, that was twice the speed of my ships, just a 1/3 shy of the speed of my long range missiles. After 2 in game days the contacts enter active sensor range, communications rolls have failed and take a look at the picture of the aliens, some strange being with tentacles in its mouth and a medallion around its neck.

I was excited at the time: "They are getting close for communications!", 12 hours later they are barely 50m km away, thats when something at the back of my head says: "Perhaps they are not coming close to chat more likely you intruded in one of their holy worlds or something and they want to turn you into space dust.".

I decided to not listen to the voices in my head and greet them xenos with open arms. At the 30m km range, the aliens launched a salvo of missiles, 40 missiles to be precise, and that was just the first salvo, they kept shooting more salvoes as they were getting closer. I quickly assigned weapons to the fire controls and assigned targets to my missile frigates and gave the order to launch a volley. The enemy projectiles were travelling at a speed of 30000 km/s, while my fire control had only 10000 km/s tracking speed. My own missiles were travelling at 18000 km/s and with a size of 5, I didn't had much of them.

As most can imagine, it went very badly for me. I was only able to destroy 8 missiles before my frigates were engulfed and destroyed. In the meantime, all my 30 missiles were destroyed.

After the destruction of my fleet, I felt naive, stupid and betrayed. I offer them a hand and they blew my ships. That forced a massive effort to build new ships, I checked the designs of other people, I read in detail how combat works. After an entire day in real life of preparation I was ready to send my ships. This time I sent 2 Retribution Fleets, each led by a cruiser, was composed of 4 missiles frigates with new missiles, 4 PD frigates, 2 beam destroyers and 2 colliers filled to the brim with missiles.

It felt so good destroying their petty little ships and blanketing their worlds, turns out there were of them behind a jump gate, in cleasing nuclear fire.

[Girlinhat]

So I'm thinking about doing a somewhat experimental campaign.  The theme is to avoid most research.  I'll bump my initial research amount, and assign it myself so I can get something useful, but for the most part not do research.  Instead, my main combat focus will be ground units and speed.  What research I do will mainly be engine tech and ground combat.  Getting 20x speed over the enemy will be vital to deploying troops into ships, so small ships with hot engines, or large ships with extra hot engines, will be the name of the game, possibly a single spinal mount laser to punch a first hole for the troops to get in quicker.

With the captured ships I'll steal technology and use it to produce more advanced ships.  Because of this, my tech will mostly lag behind my enemy's, so it'll be a game of brute force and numbers rather than elegantly overpowering.  Since you can't steal all the tech options, I'll still keep some researchers on construction, biology, and logistics, but primarily rely on enemy designs to gain energy, missiles, defenses, sensor, and propulsion.

As an additional quirk, I would like to not change my designs during a single combat campaign.  Against one NPR, I'll try to use the same designs or even just one fleet to deal with them.  The fleet will mainly be large carriers, oversized warships with decent turrets, and extremely fast fighters/FAC.  During a combat campaign, enemy ships will be boarded, stowed away into the carriers, and eventually brought back and scrapped.  When they're broken down for tech, I'll use the new knowledge to design a new fleet and upgrade the old fleet.  If my fleet is taken out by an NPR, then I'll use whatever tech is available to make something better and try again.  This may mean using new tech to make intermediately upgraded designs, or using more of the same components, like doubling up on engines or thickening the armor.

To make things ‼FUN‼ the NPR generation chance would be ridiculously high, and combat operations would be full assault, with no enemy survivors left.  Nothing short of complete eradication of every individual on every colony will suffice.  And since there won't be much researching, the exploration and warfare should start from day 1, there's no reason to wait.

Any thoughts?

[Graknorke]

Sounds like you might have to cheat yourself some extra production capacity and resources and the like to make it work, but it sounds interesting.

[Girlinhat]

Why do you say that?  I think I may actually play out cheaper than other empires.  Lower tech costs less, and I won't need some pieces of tech as much as others.  Lasers don't really need the range modifier, for instance, since they'll mainly be used for point blank piercing, so I can shave off costs there.  Engines may not use fuel-per-hour modifiers and scrimp on costs.  If I'm lacking resources that means I'll need to claim more planets!  It will be extremely aggressive as well, possibly unable to stop exploiting.  Attack one NPR, and while recouping the cost by colonizing their worlds, encounter another NPR.  That means getting into another fight, and recouping costs...  Either way, Earth will probably be permanently producing mines, and terrifyingly sized mining ships will likely become a thing.

[coleslaw35]

Gosh, this is exciting. This is the first system that I've ever visited that isn't Sol!

Ha! Just wait until you meet your first xenos or run into a set of ruins.

I remember when I met my first Xeno scum, I name them the Klat something or the something Klat after their first ship design I ran into, the point being, they were a bunch of jerkish turds. It was an 6.43 version game.

I sent the 1st Armed Exploration fleet, comprimised of 1 jump beam frigate, 1 PD frigate and the other 2 missile frigates, to the last unexplored jump point of Sol. The newly discovered system was Alpha Centauri, a binary system with 8 planets, each with 2 to 5 moons. Just barely 20 seconds after arrival I detect a thermal signature over Alpha Centauri-B II, stronger than any of my ships and a EM even more strong.

I was like "Yes! Finally, aliens! That diplomacy team will actually be useful for something", so activate transponders, assign the team and initiate communications and I give the order to the fleet to go to the nearest planet, Alpha Centauri-B VIII. The fleet was going to take 5 days getting to the planet, plenty of time to establish communications, I thought it was going to be a peaceful encounter.

Oh boy was I wrong.

After a few minutes, the thermal contact turns into 4, and reads a speed of 12000 km/s, that was twice the speed of my ships, just a 1/3 shy of the speed of my long range missiles. After 2 in game days the contacts enter active sensor range, communications rolls have failed and take a look at the picture of the aliens, some strange being with tentacles in its mouth and a medallion around its neck.

I was excited at the time: "They are getting close for communications!", 12 hours later they are barely 50m km away, thats when something at the back of my head says: "Perhaps they are not coming close to chat more likely you intruded in one of their holy worlds or something and they want to turn you into space dust.".

I decided to not listen to the voices in my head and greet them xenos with open arms. At the 30m km range, the aliens launched a salvo of missiles, 40 missiles to be precise, and that was just the first salvo, they kept shooting more salvoes as they were getting closer. I quickly assigned weapons to the fire controls and assigned targets to my missile frigates and gave the order to launch a volley. The enemy projectiles were travelling at a speed of 30000 km/s, while my fire control had only 10000 km/s tracking speed. My own missiles were travelling at 18000 km/s and with a size of 5, I didn't had much of them.

As most can imagine, it went very badly for me. I was only able to destroy 8 missiles before my frigates were engulfed and destroyed. In the meantime, all my 30 missiles were destroyed.

After the destruction of my fleet, I felt naive, stupid and betrayed. I offer them a hand and they blew my ships. That forced a massive effort to build new ships, I checked the designs of other people, I read in detail how combat works. After an entire day in real life of preparation I was ready to send my ships. This time I sent 2 Retribution Fleets, each led by a cruiser, was composed of 4 missiles frigates with new missiles, 4 PD frigates, 2 beam destroyers and 2 colliers filled to the brim with missiles.

It felt so good destroying their petty little ships and blanketing their worlds, turns out there were of them behind a jump gate, in cleasing nuclear fire.

*would've snipped this quote down but i'm on mobile so that's impossible to do rn*

I think I should start work on my PDs and missile ships then considering my only warships are kinda outdated with their 10cm infrared lasers

40 million kms at 30000 kms? Dayum. I knew missiles were good and could be extremely long ranged, but I don't like creating overpowered, across-the-system missile frigates. Then again, with my current knowledge of the game, no matter how hard I try i'll never make anything too good.

I was hoping to be able to focus on lasers but missiles op so I guess it's time I learn missiles.

My current warships are just the wimpy little 10 cm infrared lasers at 30000 km/s range.

What's the best weapon to use for point defense?

[Girlinhat]

There's three variances of point defense.
1: Shoot them down at millions of km with missiles.
2: Shoot them down at thousands of km with beams.
3: Shoot them down at point blank with CIWS.

Each of these has their advantages and disadvantages.  Anti-missile missiles give you more time to engage, so in case you fail you still have time to take more actions.  You can also get significantly agile AMM quite capable of striking down enemy missiles.  But you have to bring the missiles with you, and adjust for magazine size and reload and everything.

Beams have free recharge (just add reactor!) and can hit at several hundred thousand km, with a proper point defense beam array being rigged for range and speed, but not much damage.  Mesons can benefit from this, as they always do 1 damage anyways and ignore armor, and lasers have exceptional range.  They can also more easily double as anti-ship weapons, where AMM are generally not good against hard targets.  Meson turrets have the benefit of being able to strike at PDCs most easily.  However they're relatively short range, giving you less time to react in case of failure and fewer chances to take shots.

CIWS can be the most reliable, firing 'the instant before impact' automatically, and requiring no additional magazines or reactors, being one complete unit.  They have a fair success rate, but their technology is partly based on gauss, which may not be a primary research for a normal empire.  Their biggest disadvantage is being the last ditch effort.  If CIWS fail, then the attacks are going to hit, with no chance for any other countermeasures.  They also only defend their mounted ship, not the fleet, but if you're smart you should be able to force your engagement rules.

My personal flavor is single meson turrets or reduced size quad laser turrets.  It's a bit closer range, but mesons can track fast, and lasers can be reduced to 25% size, making 4 lasers the same size as 1 laser.  It takes so much longer to fire again, but with proper recharge rate they can be quick enough.  You probably won't be facing withering constant volleys, but rather segmented salvos.  Taking quad shots at a salvo can give you the benefit of a shotgun.

Of course there's two other varities of defense as well.  It's possible to build fighter interceptors which may get 1-2 shots, and have the benefit of fighter's speed for tracking, and could get some blanket fire gauss on it.  Speed itself can also be critical, as enough speed can best the missile agility and cause them to miss entirely.

[Azazass]

I think I should start work on my PDs and missile ships then considering my only warships are kinda outdated with their 10cm infrared lasers

A good PD it's the difference between holeless ships and holefull ships.

40 million kms at 30000 kms? Dayum. I knew missiles were good and could be extremely long ranged, but I don't like creating overpowered, across-the-system missile frigates. Then again, with my current knowledge of the game, no matter how hard I try i'll never make anything too good.

That missile was mostly engines, designing a missile might be a bit difficult at first but check the forums and this thread and you'll see several missile designs. Of course, a good guideline in missile design is that the range of your projectile must be equal or less to your missile fire control.

Alternatively you could make long range fire-and-forget missiles with their own sensors.

I was hoping to be able to focus on lasers but missiles op so I guess it's time I learn missiles.

Missiles can and will ran out, the enemy PD will be too good, their armor is too strong, but more likely, a combination of all these factors. Always keep beam weapons.

My current warships are just the wimpy little 10 cm infrared lasers at 30000 km/s range.

What's the best weapon to use for point defense?

The best PD depends on your current tech level, construction capacity and wealth.

For a lightly armed expendable ship, like a system patrol corvette, the CIWS should be more than enough.

For bigger and more valuable, having turrets armed with meson, gauss or laser turrets it's a must, railguns are also a popular alternative, but they can't be put on turrets, the tracking speed of a turret can be modified given you better chances of shooting down those missiles, of course your PD fire control also needs to have a good tracking speed.

And another alternative is a PD with small missiles, fast and agile, don't worry much about fuel, it can make short work of any incoming enemy missiles.