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Author Topic: Lets Play: Aurora  (Read 25352 times)

forsaken1111

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Lets Play: Aurora
« on: April 10, 2011, 07:37:41 am »

The year is 2001.

A monumental discovery on the surface of the moon has united the nations of Earth in a way no religion or creed ever could. Incontrovertible evidence of alien life, sought for years by organizations such as SETI, was found buried 40ft beneath the lunar surface. On March 3rd of the year 1993, a crashed alien ship was uncovered by a joint American/Russian research mission. The wreck was removed in pieces over the next year and a half, studied by America, Chinese and Russian scientists. In the end all were forced to the conclusion that the ship was of extraterrestrial origin.
The hull of the wreck alone advanced human science by decades. The spacecraft was composed of metals and materials which are unaffected by gravity and possess properties which violate the laws of Newtonian physics as we understand them. Aware of this possibility, it was not long before similar materials were detected near the earth’s core using a specialized gravity-based sensor system salvaged from the wreck.

The information was made public on February 22nd, 1995. By May, the budget for all major space programs had increased tenfold, and a deep-core mining initiative began headed by the Russian government with assistance from US oil conglomerates. Based on deep ocean drilling platforms but constructed using the new ‘Trans-Newtonian’ elements discovered in the crashed spaceship, deep core platforms are constructed along fault lines the world over. The new materials make deep core drilling a realistic possibility and soon the core materials are being exploited all over the world. Scientists theorize that these TN materials may be naturally occurring, and in abundance far exceeding that observed on Earth.
By 1998, world leaders have begun lasting peace talks and rumors speak of a new world order led by the current world superpowers. On January 1st, 2001 the treaty is signed forming the United Earth Federation.

The newly formed UEF has 6 billion inhabitants, all working towards the success and betterment of Earth. Administrator Walter Marken was sworn in as Governor of Planet Earth with promises to lead the UEF in a new era of exploration and scientific discovery. His first goal is development of systems and technologies to allow a full geological survey of the Sol system’s planetary bodies and asteroid fields.


Spoiler: Earth Overview (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Earth Mining Situation (click to show/hide)



This is a LP based on the 4x space game Aurora. I will continue it in narrative form as time goes on. I know that others have done/are doing similar LPs, I’m doing this for two reasons. First, it will keep me interested in the game and second, I find it interesting to create stories and meaning where none existed before. If you wish a commander or administrator named after you, let me know. As the game goes on I will take suggestions and even let people design ships for the UEF to use. I chose to start a conventional empire with a full 6 billion people which means that we have incredible production capacity and extremely inferior technology. I also chose not to get the normal missile bases conventional empires start with because they are largely useless anyway. At the game start I used SM mode to instant the Trans Newtonian tech but have given us no other technologies at all. Should be interesting!

Requests:
Sheb - Survey Jump Tender
Neonivek - First alien planet
breadbocks, Codecimal B. Thompson - Commander of Fleet
JWNoctis, John - Missile Ship
Korbac, Professor Explodington - Weapons scientist
The Scout, Admiral Yermakov - "a ship in the main fleet. Something with alot of anti-missiles, to protect the fleet. Or any piece of junk you can throw together"
MasterFancyPants, General Barbrokoski - Commanding an elite regiment of marines for special operations
Narmio, Commander (or whatever - rank not important) Narmio - head of Geosurvey Team
Haspen, Haspen McHaspennus - captain of first laser/beam/whatever warship you make.
Flintus10, Commander Flint - Ship Commander
« Last Edit: April 16, 2011, 09:59:11 pm by forsaken1111 »
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breadbocks

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Re: Lets Play: Aurora
« Reply #1 on: April 10, 2011, 07:55:47 am »

Following with interest. Do you mind explaining what those screenies mean? I've been meaning to try Aurora, but haven't found the time.
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forsaken1111

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Re: Lets Play: Aurora
« Reply #2 on: April 10, 2011, 08:06:25 am »

Following with interest. Do you mind explaining what those screenies mean? I've been meaning to try Aurora, but haven't found the time.
There is a lot of information there, what would you like explained?
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breadbocks

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Re: Lets Play: Aurora
« Reply #3 on: April 10, 2011, 08:14:27 am »

The mining bit seems explanatory enough, as do the population thingies, but I can't make heads or tails of the last 4 lines of the left side, and the entire right side of the first screen cap.
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forsaken1111

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Re: Lets Play: Aurora
« Reply #4 on: April 10, 2011, 08:48:37 am »

The mining bit seems explanatory enough, as do the population thingies, but I can't make heads or tails of the last 4 lines of the left side, and the entire right side of the first screen cap.
The last four lines on the left side: The requested/actual protection level signifies how much protection the population feels they need. Ships and planetary defense centers count towards this. If the population doesn't have as much protection as it wants, unrest will occur. The homeworld is exempt from this though, it only applies to offworld colonies.

The tectonics just describes the geological/volcanic activity of the planet though I believe it has something to do with how hard minerals are to mine as well.

The last line about the geological team just tells me if a geology team has surveyed the planet in detail.

On the right side:

Military Academy and Deep Space Tracking Station tells me how many of those facilities exist on the planet. Military academies train your officers and crewmen, so you get more each year when you build more academies. Deep space tracking stations act as planetary sensors and can detect targets like ship-based sensors. The sensor strength and number of stations determines their range.

Maintenance facilities allow ships up to that size to to stay in orbit without suffering maintenance failures.

Shipyards/slipways just shows how many shipyards and total slipways we have at Earth, we started with 1 yard. Each yard can have multiple slipways so that it can build more than one ship at once.

Because I started as a conventional empire we didn't start with any of the new facilities, so instead we have 12000 'conventional industry' which is old style factories and production facilities which we'll eventually have to convert into the much more efficient new facilities. Conventional industry counts as mines, construction factories, ordinance factories, etc but is not very good at any of those roles.

Research labs is how many labs we have available, 60 lab complexes are equipped to do trans-newtonian research on Earth.

Ground force training facilities is how many facilities we have in place for training new ground units.

Fuel available is zero because we haven't started refining fuel for TN engines. Fuel is refined from Sorium, one of the TN elements, and is used in all TN drives.

Maintenance supplies lists how much supplies we have available to top off ships when they resupply at earth. Maintenance supplies are a catch-all 'spare parts' used to fix things which break while a ship is out in space.

Thermal/EM signature of the colony shows how easy/hard it would be for a sensor system to detect the colony on this planet (not very hard for 6 billion people!)

The rest of the stuff, the last 5 lines on the right, are only useful if you're playing a race other than human or if possibly if you capture an alien colony. It shows the modifiers that the race of this colony has to those factors. 100% = human normal.
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Neonivek

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Re: Lets Play: Aurora
« Reply #5 on: April 10, 2011, 09:17:55 am »

Are you also going to be putting pictures on all the planets (And I guess anything that allows it)?

I am actually a bit surprised the game's earth start doesn't just have it preselected.
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forsaken1111

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Re: Lets Play: Aurora
« Reply #6 on: April 10, 2011, 09:19:47 am »

Are you also going to be putting pictures on all the planets (And I guess anything that allows it)?

I am actually a bit surprised the game's earth start doesn't just have it preselected.
Not sure what you mean. Putting pictures on planets?

6th January, 2001 - Working closely with Lockheed Martin, Doctor Eldridge Scher has adapted a variant of the Titan IV rocket engine for use with the new TN materials. The drive system, named the Scher-Martin Rocket Drive, is set to be used in a new generation of space craft. While powerful, the drive has proven to be prone to maintenance failures during long-duration missions and Doctor Scher believes that the drive system can be adapted to a larger but more reliable version. In the meantime, Doctor Scher has been assigned to a project to develop geological survey sensors which can scan the core of planetary bodies for TN minerals from orbit.
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Neonivek

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Re: Lets Play: Aurora
« Reply #7 on: April 10, 2011, 09:23:43 am »

The game has a system view. Planets are represented by Grey spheres unless you smack a picture on them.

Am I playing some unknown version of Aurora?
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breadbocks

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Re: Lets Play: Aurora
« Reply #8 on: April 10, 2011, 09:27:47 am »

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forsaken1111

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Re: Lets Play: Aurora
« Reply #9 on: April 10, 2011, 09:28:51 am »

The game has a system view. Planets are represented by Grey spheres unless you smack a picture on them.

Am I playing some unknown version of Aurora?
Oh, no I don't plan to put pictures in the system view. That would be a ridiculous amount of work later on. If we find a new planet and you guys want to give me a picture for it I'll do that but otherwise I'm not going to spend time finding pics for every planet.
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forsaken1111

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Re: Lets Play: Aurora
« Reply #10 on: April 10, 2011, 10:10:15 am »

8th March, 2001 - Doctor Harold Paulo has perfected a high-power solid state infrared laser emitter which he believes could form the basis of a space-based energy weapon. A team led by Doctor Nellie Bocker has developed a new hull material based on the recovered alien wreck which offers superior structural and protective properties.

-----

12th April, 2001 - Research on Geological Survey Sensors has been completed. A survey vessel using the new technologies has been designed and the orbital Portsmouth Naval yard is being expanded. The Discovery class vessel will be the first human spacecraft constructed entirely in orbit, and will have a crew of 168. Such an undertaking is unprecedented in human history. The expansion of the orbital yard is set to complete March 18th, 2002.

Code: [Select]
Discovery class Geological Survey Vessel    1,700 tons     168 Crew     197.5 BP      TCS 34  TH 4  EM 0
117 km/s     Armour 1-12     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/1     Damage Control Rating 3     PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 7%    IFR: 0.1%    Maint Capacity 218 MSP    Max Repair 100 MSP    Est Time: 7.04 Years

Scher-Martin Rocket Drive (4)    Power 1    Fuel Use 100%    Signature 1    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 52.7 billion km   (5208 days at full power)

Geological Survey Sensors (1)   1 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

1st June, 2001 - A remarkable breakthrough has been made by Doctor Scher as several systems recovered from the alien wreck have been discovered to emit coherent energy fields designed for defensive purposes. Our own efforts at replicating this technology have finally succeeded, and the Alpha Shield defensive system is ready for testing and full scale trials.

6th October, 2001 - A team has been formed to perform a detailed geological survey of Earth’s core with new survey equipment in the hopes of finding previously unknown and unexploited TN mineral deposits.

Taking a break for now.
« Last Edit: April 10, 2011, 10:40:21 am by forsaken1111 »
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EuchreJack

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Re: Lets Play: Aurora
« Reply #11 on: April 10, 2011, 02:23:53 pm »

I was actually wondering at first if you created an alien spaceship and placed it upon Luna or Earth.  I bet that could be done, somehow.  I think I might test that.

Svampapa

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Re: Lets Play: Aurora
« Reply #12 on: April 10, 2011, 02:43:30 pm »

From what I've seen, it's just the sol system that lacks pictures of the planets. Any new systems will have planets of all kinds showing as they get generated.  :)
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forsaken1111

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Re: Lets Play: Aurora
« Reply #13 on: April 10, 2011, 07:27:55 pm »

I was actually wondering at first if you created an alien spaceship and placed it upon Luna or Earth.  I bet that could be done, somehow.  I think I might test that.
No, I didn't go so far as to place a wreck. I'm just using that as a narrative reason for the sudden emergence of TN tech.

Edit: Hm, I may do something like that later on though. Could be interesting!
« Last Edit: April 10, 2011, 07:37:05 pm by forsaken1111 »
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forsaken1111

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Re: Lets Play: Aurora
« Reply #14 on: April 10, 2011, 08:41:09 pm »

8th December, 2001 - Doctor Kareem Tait has announced a highly controversial research project involving the deliberate mutation and genetic engineering of a human being with the eventual goal of survival on worlds which would currently be uninhabitable.

6th February, 2002 - The geology team, led by Captain Daniel Ruzich, has discovered a previously unknown deposit of Corbomite. Approximately 100,000 tons of the material lies close to the earth's core. New drilling platforms are being erected now to exploit this mineral resource. The team does not believe any further minerals are left to be found on planet Earth, we will have to look towards the solar system for new sources.

12th April, 2002 - The Orbital Portsmouth Naval Yard has expanded its capacity to handle ships up to 2000 tons. Construction of the first Discovery class spacecraft, the Leif Ericson, is underway and will complete on 15th December of this year. Its crew are drawn from the remains of the Russian, Chinese and American space programs and the 168 crewmen are currently undergoing training for their maiden voyage.


Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: April 10, 2011, 08:45:26 pm by forsaken1111 »
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