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Ad Astra! ... an Aurora Forum Game, run by blue emu

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Capt. Kiwi said:
There's a lot on that planet, but there'll be a lot in the other Prix systems too. We should definitely wait till the quick stuff is recovered and returned to Earth, but anything that could years or months to recover can carry on in the background while we move on to the next target, in my opinion. Most of what we're upgrading, like fighters and missiles are quick to replace and tend to get used up anyway - all those thousands of missiles we expended taking this planet were already obsolete, as it turned out.
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Oh sure, churn out fighters and missiles, but there was talk of a strategic review and musing on a new, larger ship class to use now we have 20k ton military slips. Anything destroyer sized or larger is going to be a multi-year build. Also, just because Emu took out this Prix system doesn't mean we'll be able to take out others. The fleet was pretty lucky that the Prix seemed to be very low on shipkiller missiles.

Speaking of Fighters: Once we have faster fighters, will we make actual fighter strikes? That is, close the fighters to their missile range, fire, and return to rearm, rather than just holding them with the fleet to soak missiles?

Also, is SteveW Steve White, of Starfire fame? I was getting a lot of Starfire vibes from this AAR, but didn't think much of it until "SteveW" appeared.
 
Talk is cheap; I'm pretty sure it's all hypothetical until a couple of near complete research projects finish and the loot from the Prix system are recovered. That said, recovering the tech will itself take a long time, perhaps long enough to justify small build programs in the meantime to keep slips occupied. If we discover the tech level of the cities quickly enough, it should become pretty obvious just how much we'll get out of the ruins and whether its worth waiting or not.

As for fighters, that's going to depend on just how good their sensors are. They weren't deliberately used as targets, they were on a missile run in that first battle. If we can't get them into firing range before they enter PD they'll just end up as missile soaks whether we like it or not.

The Aurora wiki cites the game creator as Steve Walmsley, although he has stated here that he doesn't get involved with the wiki and they've got a few things wong. He'd have to speak for himself on whether his name is one of these things :)
 
SteveW is Steve Walmsey, atleast according to what SteveW have written.
 
Darkrenown said:
Oh sure, churn out fighters and missiles, but there was talk of a strategic review and musing on a new, larger ship class to use now we have 20k ton military slips. Anything destroyer sized or larger is going to be a multi-year build. Also, just because Emu took out this Prix system doesn't mean we'll be able to take out others. The fleet was pretty lucky that the Prix seemed to be very low on shipkiller missiles.
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The fleet was extremely lucky that the Prix targetted the Rocks and fighters rather than the heavier ships. However, ship-killer missiles should be slower and easier to intercept than the AMMs that they were firing that time around. In addition, the detection capabilities of the fleet are much improved from the first battle.

Basically, beating the Prix again will require decent point-defence technology, which suggests a dedicated destroyer or cruiser escort.

The strategic requirement comes in when considering how to take out planetary defences. We used a lot of missiles this time. Perhaps something like fighters to get in close before launching missile salvoes, FACs to do the same, or exploring the possibility of combat Rocks to close in and soak damage.

Also, is SteveW Steve White, of Starfire fame? I was getting a lot of Starfire vibes from this AAR, but didn't think much of it until "SteveW" appeared.
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It's Steve Walmsley I think, but yes, he's the same Steve as the one from Starfire (which I'd never heard of before this). This AAR gives me very strong Harpoon vibes.
 
Capt. Kiwi said:
As for fighters, that's going to depend on just how good their sensors are. They weren't deliberately used as targets, they were on a missile run in that first battle. If we can't get them into firing range before they enter PD they'll just end up as missile soaks whether we like it or not.
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They stayed with the fleet though, IIRC, since their missiles actually had the same range as the fleet's and they had no speed advantage.
 
Do we have any troop transports? If not, we must soon. It will take some time of course, but eventually those cities will be uncovered and robotic legions will march forth! Based on a game I played, some garrison divisions and at least a mobile infantry are needed.
 
Darkrenown said:
They stayed with the fleet though, IIRC, since their missiles actually had the same range as the fleet's and they had no speed advantage.
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You'd have to check with Blue Emu, but I think that after a certain point the fleet stopped closing on the enemy, while the fighters kept going forward to close to missile range. The fighters then fell back to reload, and because the fleet was actually faster than the fighters it had to hang around awhile so they wouldn't get left behind. The difference in distance wasn't that big though, because of speed and range problems. Looking back, the fighters fired in post 3788, the rest of the fleet in post 3801. Emu only knows the game time elapsed between, but it was 50 minutes of real time between posts.

We probably couldn't have got the fighters in firing range a lot quicker, given how slow they were. In that circumstance we were probably best off using them exactly as we did. But I absolutely agree that in future we want them to be able to go out and strike on their own, so hopefully the new FCs will be sufficient to outrange PD.
 
SteveW here either is the creator of Aurora, or he's a very good impersonator with very good knowledge of the game ;)

We have troop transports; we used them when we found another alien outpost and dig it up. What we might not have built yet is dropships for marine drops on hostile worlds.

Real fighter action will be more realistic now that our fighters are really fast :D
 
Darkrenown said:
Also, is SteveW Steve White, of Starfire fame? I was getting a lot of Starfire vibes from this AAR, but didn't think much of it until "SteveW" appeared.
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No I am not Steve White :)

However, I did play 2nd and 3rd edition Starfire for about 15 years and I wrote a piece of software called Starfire Assistant. I didn't like the 4th or later editions though as it become more of a no-frills combat game and much less a sort-telling game. Although the mechanics are very different, Aurora is heavily influenced by 3rd edition Starfire in terms of genre and flavour. Also heavily influenced by Harpoon and Honor Harrington as well, not to mention Babylon V, Star Fleet Battles, FASA Interceptor, Warhammer 40k and many others :)
 
Emu:
I know this request requires a bit of work, but would it be possible to post the latest designs in one of the first post (or perhaps a totally new thread would be even better)?
It would come in handy for us readers, and it´s very time consuming to go through lots of posts to try to find out what you have.
 
Regarding the Expansion of our fleet:

Actually I will bring up a, probably very unpopular, suggestion.

I would ask you, great blue emu, to immediately stop any fleet expansion program. Our battlefleet grew much faster than our civil sector and our economy. We will run in a severe resource problem in the near future, and we will have problems to keep all our new colonies growing.

We should invest much more in our civil sector, and massproduce new and fast freighter and colony ships.
Our battlefleet is big enough now to defend us against any possible known thread. There is no need to expand it further until new technological breakthroughs emerge, and until our economy is more stable and we make a surplus in resource production (mainly duranium and corundium)
 
Iche_Bins said:
Regarding the Expansion of our fleet:

Actually I will bring up a, probably very unpopular, suggestion.

I would ask you, great blue emu, to immediately stop any fleet expansion program. Our battlefleet grew much faster than our civil sector and our economy. We will run in a severe resource problem in the near future, and we will have problems to keep all our new colonies growing.

We should invest much more in our civil sector, and massproduce new and fast freighter and colony ships.
Our battlefleet is big enough now to defend us against any possible known thread. There is no need to expand it further until new technological breakthroughs emerge, and until our economy is more stable and we make a surplus in resource production (mainly duranium and corundium)
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We have been extremely fortunate that we haven't run into a hostile, expansionist alien race so far. (The Prix are precursors.. so they are rather.. dormant) Should we run into one, watch as our paper empire is torn to shreds as we have no teeth.
 
SteveW said:
So when are you turning Swarm and Invaders back on? :)
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As someone who's just signed up for service with the scout fleet, I'm hoping the answer is never!
 
Swarm would be tough on scouts. Invaders would be tough on everyone stationed in colonies and Earth, and on the fleet obviously :D

Then, since it's the first lasting game for Blue Emu, I don't exactly expect him to try these now that he's just tackled and experimented the whole mess brought by Precursors.
 
I would love to see Humanity fight The Invasion or Infestation or anyone not as limited and non-threatening as Prix (They are formidable enemy, but we are only going to get stronger and fast whilst they will stagnate, I wouldnt be surprised if we would smash them with no losses in our next engagement.) Our neighbours are dissapointingly peaceful and backwards to boot (so no cool Minbari-like twist possible).

The best moments of any game when you think you are about to be wiped out or nuked to oblivion (as in this case), also I think our Emu Overlord is no newbie any more :)
 
SteveW said:
No I am not Steve White :)

However, I did play 2nd and 3rd edition Starfire for about 15 years and I wrote a piece of software called Starfire Assistant. I didn't like the 4th or later editions though as it become more of a no-frills combat game and much less a sort-telling game. Although the mechanics are very different, Aurora is heavily influenced by 3rd edition Starfire in terms of genre and flavour. Also heavily influenced by Harpoon and Honor Harrington as well, not to mention Babylon V, Star Fleet Battles, FASA Interceptor, Warhammer 40k and many others :)
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Were/are you influenced in any form by EvE Online? This was the very first thing that came into mind when I saw the game. Also, reddit?
 
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