I'm very partial to the DF-only-more-so-in-space spreadsheet game Aurora. It's made by a megasperg in order to provide believable battles for his numbercrunchy fiction, and it's basically a massive spreadsheet pretending to be a game.
Perfect /tg/ fodder, in other words!
The idea goes like this. It'd be something like a Builder Quest, with people taking the roles of the High Command of the starting race. You lot make the decisions about what to do next, design techs and so on (those who know the game will have a big advantage here) and my part will mainly be to SpaceMaster up interesting shit and do the tedious bit, ie actually cranking the game along and reporting back the results to you (as your characters back on the homeworld).
I'm imagining it as being somewhere between a Quest/Builder thread and a Community Game type of thread (only with waaaaaay more input than is usual for that sort of thing).
Does this sound fun? Anal-retentive grognard space sim shit with someone else doing the donkey work, plus added /tg/ goodness?
This sounds awsome.
This sounds really cool actually.
>Inb4 /tg makes the Imperium of Man
Can't wait to purge everything that isn't us.
What kind of start are you planning?
>>43731970
Earth start, Trans-Newtonian, Beyond that I'm flexible.
Good luck OP, every game I play of this always ends in a cascading shitstorm of database errors.
So how about a basic faction idea then? I'm thinking of something along the lines of a stellar republic in the vein of the Roman Republic.
Oh my god, I'm actually drooling right now.
I'm game, this looks freakin' awesome!
oh yeah this would be fun. I used to play this a lot, I think I might still be a vaguely effective ship designer.
I'm up for it, sounds cool.
>>43732832
Putting my vote in for either Space America (United States of Terra), or Space Rome (SPQT; Senatus Populusque Terrae)
>>43732832
Definitely, start throwing ideas around. I'll throw up the list of built-in themes sometime tomorrow.
I should probably get a trip, shouldn't I?
We must become Space Serbia.
>>43734717
Only if there are Space Kebab.
>>43734717
Remove Xeno
>>43735647
That is a start atleast
Oh man I love Aurora, would be down depending on schedule
>>43734717
+1
>>43734717
Aww yeah
>>43732076
What does that mean for us?
This sounds like the only quest thread I won't be hiding in ages. More of a LP than quest though.
Can you try to explain how it works/what you're doing as you go along?
>>43734717
Space Byzantium would be better.Commie space byzantium.With people being unperson'd for being insufficiently orthodox.
>>43736426
Means reduced amounts of shit I have to set up and a familiar home system for the former, and a much quicker bootstrap into space for the latter.
Aurora doesn't use strict Newtonian mechanics to govern its physics. This is why the maps are 2d and your ships dont use fuel in orbit and travel at full speed toward their targets then stop rather than engaging in constant complicated acceleration/deceleration maneuvers. (This also conveniently deals with the vibration and shear force problems that restrict the development of really big spaceships IRL.)
The in-universe explanation is the discovery of a set of minerals that interact with the universe as if it was more like a 2d sea. These "Trans-Newtonian Elements" are therefore the main limiting factor for relatively easy space travel and supplies of them in Sol are painfully limited.
I'm really liking the response so far. Will think.of a trip and lay out how I see this working in a while.
>>43736426
Aurora is... Aurora is 2deep. OP explained what his specific terms were- Earth start means we start off her, on earth, near Sol. Trans-Newtonian means we've discovered the magical elements that form deep in the cores of planets and make all of the sci-fi business function.
As for how Aurora as a game functions, like I said it's 2deep. At the highest level of abstraction, you manage an empire- You've got populations on celestial bodies, they can work industry, in hostile environments they need infrastructure, that sort of thing. Exactly what industry is present and built on a planet is up to you, as well as how to use it. Generally the purpose of colonies is to mine those trans-newtonian elements, though AI-controlled civilian companies can spring up to take advantage of the trade opportunities that come from multiple colonies.
As for how you explore and settle, you need spaceships obviously, right? Well, it takes a fucking village to build a spaceship. Let's work backwards, from "Your ship finishes building and is launched"
>>43736918
Before a ship is launched, it must be built in a shipyard. Simple enough.
Before a ship is built the shipyard must be tooled for the class' design, a process that takes time money and resources, and ties up the shipyard while it changes focus.
Before a shipyard can be tooled for a class, the class design itself must be made and finalized. A ship class design is made up of components- A bridge, fuel tanks, engines, layers of armor, crew spaces dependent on deployment time, engineering spaces dependent on overhaul times, sensors, missile launchers, magazines, etc etc.
Some components simply rely on research. Armor, for example. As you research better armor materials, your designs will get the same level of protection in less tonnage.
Most components are designed. By you. An engine, for example. You decide the level of propulsion technology, how large the engine is, how supercharged or undercharged the engine is, how well it masks its thermal signature if at all, and even its name. Once you've got that, you research the design itself to make it available in ship class design.
But before even that, all of those elements that went into that engine design are their own technologies that need to be researched.
And your research depends on what scientists you have and how many labs you have, which comes back to your population and industrial focus.
>>43731479
+1 for following (and participating if the time permits). Also
+1 for playing Aurora.
>>43736969
This sounds like the best game ever.
>>43736969
I'd link you to the wiki for the game but that damn thing is down, something about the server host bitching at the bloke who runs it about physically impossible loads.
Of course, to do any of these things requires resources. Money comes from your populations, civilian trade ships, taxes, ad is largely hands-off but is used in basically every process. Crew and officers and administrators and scientists come from military academies, which you can build. Fuel comes from Sorium, one of the trans-newtonian elements, either mined and refined or sucked ready to burn from the atmosphere of a gas giant. Minerals in general are the other bottleneck, like half a dozen of them with varied specific applications.
You use minerals to build ships to survey bodies for minerals and to deploy mines and workers or automated mines and mass drivers or cargo ships and planetary defense bases (designed just like ships) and survey the solar system for jump points that let you explore other stars if you bring a jump drive along and I'm rambling because it's 4am and I've lost control of my life but yeah it's really fucking deep and really fucking wide.
The interface is, well, really fucking clunky and dense. Though it does have a Riker button, not many games have a button that's just Riker's face.
Combat is rather similar to modern naval combat- Emissions control and detection, long-range missile volleys, defense saturation, antimissiles, point defenses, gun battles only in extraordinary cases, logistics being a heavy burden.
>>43736993
I enjoy it. I'm off to sleep, hopefully thread'll be up long enough for OP to sort out something a bit more concrete.
>>43736993
It's pretty great.
OP, I love this idea. It's been a while since I've played, but a Trans-Newtonian starts us off with a bunch of technologies and shipyards, right? I think it'd be cool if we started with just the TN researched and a bunch of pre-TN industry and had to work from there, but I can appreciate that'd take a while to get off the ground. Looking forward to this regardless of what you choose.
>>43737038
TN start gives us the basic tech researched, standard construction factories and industry, a few shipyards, and a budget of research points and ship build points to spend in SM mode.
pre-TN industry is flavorful but it
takes
so
long
to do anything
>>43737053
Yeah, that's fair enough. Couldn't OP just set things up and let it run at long intervals until things happen? Whatever, I'm cool with it either way.
Speaking of SM mode, doesn't that require a password? OP might need that to do GM things behind the scenes here and there.
>>43737066
Even with a TN start he's gonna basically need to have long stretches of routine nothing-much play out. That's just the timescales of the game. Hostile armies may face each other for years, striving for the victory which is decided in a single day
As for SM mode, you're correct that it requires a password. The password is set when you make the game, and defaults to blank. It and player passwords are only really useful for PBEM, or if you want to make yourself unable to use SM mode for whatever reason.
Designer mode requires another password that Steve doesn't give out freely, which lets you alter the actual game database itself, but that's a level even beyond.
In short, any GM things that OP wants to do, he'll be able to do as the person with the game.
>>43737053
Pre-TN is too slow, Yeah. Expect the first decade at least to be all about researching basic tech, not about doing actual stuff.
Also, handpicked techs for control about what have or random techs for maximum FUN?
>>43737066
SM Mode usually has on set, but you can just not set one, makes no difference. It's a player choice.
You might mean Designer Mode, which needs a PW from Steve. (Fucking things up in Designer Mode is pretty easy)
>>43737090
>>43737122
Oh right, like I said it's been a while since I've played and I'd forgotten about the difference between SM and Designer. I think I might actually have the (a?) pass for designer lying around somewhere. I might be remembering wrong and it'd be pretty old so I'm not sure if it'd work but I could take a look.
>>43736918
Good stuff.
Here's how I can see this working. You elegan/tg/entlemen will be the ruling body of the empire. That means that I won't enter anything into the game without your say-so, although I'll do my level best to simplify and interpret things as much as I can. If there's a disagreement over what to do, we'll put it to a vote.
As well as the general Ruling Body, I figure people can also take charge of specific characters (officers, scientists, etc) in the game. This is similar to people taking up characters in a community Let's Play or similar, except that a) It's your character for the RP scenes and b) I'll do my level best to follow your instructions where the game permits.
What that means is that once your empire is cranking out scout ships etc you can ask to have your officer character take charge of one of those scout ships (and any non-Aurora-type stuff I play out will therefore happen to you). Or take Military Command roles or Governor roles or decide "to hell with what the official research orders are, I'm gonna invent BIGGER LAZORS until I die."
(Which probably also needs mentioning. Aurora officers grow old, retire and die and have to be replaced.)
Aurora only covers Scientists, Civilian Administrators, Naval Officers and Ground Forces Officers. I'm happy for people to play as other things too, but I can't put you directly into the simulation. This doesn't stop you playing the Crazed Ship Architect, it just means you won't get direct feedback from the simulation and won't get to watch in horror as the alien horde distribute bits of your character across space. (Well, until they lay waste to Earth anyway.)
I'm running on GMT but my sleep cycle is a mess so I'll probably be posting at all hours. Gonna go get breakfast then I'll post up the empire theme list (which is used for naming officers etc).
>>43737146
I'm not sure that the imageboard format is suitable for people adopting individual characters, at least not in a way that in-depth. It worked for the goons because their threads persist and they have private messaging and such, but here I think a bit less formal should be the order of the day. Still communal ruling, personalities will still probably arise as experts/well-regarded on certain topics, but no points of failure around a specific anon not showing up to a thread.
Also even if you can run at all hours, doesn't mean you should. Most of your potential playerbase can't, and so running past the means of your players will just wear them out.
>>43737174
As he said. low-level RP doesn't work well with an image board.
We should probably represent the Senate, advisory council, whatever, with the more adapt Aurora players filling specific high-level roles, such as ship design, fleet command etc. hat way we don't get lost in the many details Aurora offers.
>>43737174
I have no intention of running around the clock, just letting people know I'm around a lot. I can't see this going above 1 major update a day if even that, due to the requirements of getting consensus, inputting the info, and getting screenies and writing up the results.
>>43737225
Hmm. Agreed overall but I can't help but feel it's losing something. (Also people play specific characters in Quest threads on here all the time?)
Also thanks, this was why I wanted a preliminary thread - the idea was mostly a germ of a thing and it needs some development.
>>43737256
>(Also people play specific characters in Quest threads on here all the time?)
Yes, but usually on a more hands-on level. Most Quests have you at the front-line of events, not in some small, dusty lab back home.
>>43736918
BTW, Trans-Newtonian materials are materials somehow linked to another universe where space-time is a fluid.
I like to imagine hydro-dynamic shaped ships floating up and down gravity wells.
So, here's some opening choices.
I'm going to include NPRs, Precursors and Star Swarm. (Not Invaders. We don't need that shit). Yes, this might fuck up the game but that's my problem, not yours.
Because people are showing a desire for Maximum Grognard, I'm going to turn off the simplifications. So no automatic jumpgates, overhauls and fleet training will be needed, promotions and politics are in play for officers. I am, however, going to allow the game to assign the starting tech points and increase the number of starting research labs a bit to speed up the game start.
Questions:
Do you want the game to create ship systems and designs at start? That'll allow you to get straight to building something quickly, and you can always design more later, or you can create your own.
There is a long list of Government Types with a range of different bonuses and penalties (which are currently not accessible due to the wiki being down). More or less any government you can think of is there. Is there a preference?
Finally, Empire Themes. Will do a separate post about those.
>>43737463
>fleet training will be needed
Here comes the fuel crunch.
>Do you want the game to create ship systems and designs at start?
No. Just no. the auto designs suck hard and coughing up some generic civi designs isn't that hard. Light combat ships are not that much harder.
>Government Types
High Imperial. The bickering on /tg/ will simulate the fucked up court politics good enough.
>Empire Themes
USN or Star Trek. Something everyone recognizes.
>>43737463
There are two settings for themes. The Main Empire Theme affects the naming of stuff like ship classes, ranks and so on, and the Commander Theme seeds the name generator for commanders with different name types.
There are themes for numerous countries included (unfortunately Serbia is not amongst them). Others include
Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Andromeda, Animals, Clans of Shakar, Demons, Elemental, Fantasy, Galactic Empire, Hippy, Houses Davion, Kunita, Liao, Marik and Steiner, Khanate of Orion, Knight's Templar, REF's Magician, Manticore (RMN), Nations of Earth, Norse, Odd, Orc, Rebel Alliance, Rigelian, Roman, Shotgun, Terran Federation, Tolkein, Traveller, and 40 Kecks.
Similarly, national commander naming schemes exist along with Arthurian, Aztec, Ferengi, Greek (Historical), Hobbit, Klingon, Medieval French, Norse, Mongolian, Roman, 40 Kecks and Zhodani.
And obviously the empire needs a name!
>>43737513
>Here comes the fuel crunch.
Oooooohhhh yeeeeaaahhhh
>No. Just no. the auto designs suck hard and coughing up some generic civi designs isn't that hard. Light combat ships are not that much harder.
I don't mind the system designs desu, even if the missiles aren't worth a shit. I could always delete the ship and missile designs?
>High Imperial. The bickering on /tg/ will simulate the fucked up court politics good enough.
Yup! But I'll wait to see what other people think first...
>>43737609
My vote goes High Imperial gov type, double Roman themes. Let the political maneuvering in the space senate commence!
>>43737726
There is also "Imperial Senate" government. Sounds like a better fit for SPACE ROME.
>>43737463
>Do you want the game to create ship systems and designs at start? That'll allow you to get straight to building something quickly, and you can always design more later, or you can create your own.
Yes; we're a brand new Terran council picking up where others left off, we're not starting from scratch.
>There is a long list of Government Types with a range of different bonuses and penalties (which are currently not accessible due to the wiki being down). More or less any government you can think of is there. Is there a preference?
Space America or Space Rome, if you have it.
>>43737584
>Main Empire Theme
American or Roman
>Commander Theme
American or Roman
I must admit to being very partial to SPACE ROME too.
>>43737584
>Main Empire Theme
Norse, 40k or Roman
>Commander Theme
Norse, 40k or Roman
>Name
Midgaard, Imperium of Man or Imperium Terranum
if we go with Rome we shoud get banners like >>43734468 said with SPQT
Roman would be cool, they would have enough names and suchs.
Norse could be interesting too, but a bit harder.
>>43731479
It's also buggy as shit.
We should do this with Distant Worlds: Universe.
>>43737953
To be clear, these are entries from the game's (rather insanely large) set of themes from which it is capable of generating names and titles and so on.
>>43731479
>>43737463
We need to form the Space Ottoman empire. Remove goulash; it's our only hope.That or go full HRE.
Ignore all the Romaboos and Snowniggers; they have objectively shit taste.
>>43738011
>they have objectively shit taste.
What did yov jvst fvcking say? Come at me, barbarian.
>>43738043
>tfw a bunch of barbarians created the first and second largest empires
Which reminds me; sod Ottomans, can we go full Mongoloid?
>>43737974
Ah alright, I'll keep my vote for those two anyway.
The more story and lore you can build to cover the simulator the better, but this sounds already good, I will be waiting for the quest.
RAILGUNS ONLY.
>>43738424
Screw that, MISSILES
>>43738642
Realistically Speaking:
Missiles for range, Gauss for CIWS, anything else is for extra/lulz.
>>43738696
Banks and banks and banks of energy weapons for system defense, parked right beside the jump gates.
Welp, this is stillborn.
>>43734717
remove xeno REMOVE XENO xeno you are the stink...
>want to play aurora
>have tiny baby resolution
>game only displays in one size
ROMA
OLIM
MILO
AMOR
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4chBbcava5o
Rome a best.
>>43738696
Lasers and Mesons are pretty good because you can turret them. EM weapons are only good for very heavily shielded targets and disabling sensors if you want to board an enemy ship (you crazy person). Plasma Carronades are only good at really low tech, and for loading hundreds of them onto platforms by jump points to act as huge claymore mines.
>>43739583
No.
>>43739450
Wut
OK. It's definitely looking like Imperial Rome in Space (with a certain amount of xenophobic 40k flavour) is the preferred approach. Will start constructing more fleshed out ideas.
>>43739652
>Ottokeks
R E M O V E
>>43739660
Imperial Rome is boring as shit. At least go with boyfucker Rome.
>>43739661
GOULASH
>>43739693
Catamites in space? Needs moar mods to cover that.
>>43739607
Are huge defense satellite possible? Halo style.
>>43739660
Shoot any questions now for players.
>>43740363
Kinda. There's a kind of defensive structure, PDC or something, that can't really be moved apart from being packed up and shipped but they can shoot at things that get too close. Presumably they're ground-based though because they also provide a significant bonus during ground battles. I guess you could also design a big ship with guns and no engines and just park it right outside the shipyard to shoot things, or even tow it around.
>>43740411
You can tow ships around too? Woah...this gives ideas. Too bad I can't actually play Aurora, already tried.
>>43740452
I think you can tow things. It's been a while since I've played. I could be remembering wrong.
>>43740411
PDCs are ground based and cannot be moved after they have been build. Some ground units receive a bonus when fighting from/against a PDC.
Orbital Defense satellites are indeed just normal ships with no engines.
>>43740471
Yes you can tow ships around.
Admiral Thameless reporting in.
Local System Generation Chance and Local System Generation Spread: Let's have lots of close together planets. Gotta have sectors to crusade for, after all.
"Somewhere between 500m and 1000m"
Fuck that. OP, I want you to jack starting population as high as possible--we'll spread across the stars not out of Star Trek bullshit exploration morality, but because we need to put these people somewhere before they start to eat each other.
Make the race something human-esque but different enough to make us feel genetically superior so we can explain the inevitable fa/tg/entleman's desire to PURGE.
Leave Precursors on. We'll fluff it such that we have just successfully committed an uprising against them and are additionally pursuing our robotic former masters across the stars--we'll prioritize purging them and looting the ruins they guard.
>>43737463
Government Type
>Republic
So we can make jokes about being Space Republicans.
>>43740739
>Local System Generation Chance and Local System Generation Spread: Let's have lots of close together planets. Gotta have sectors to crusade for, after all.
That's influencing connections between system, not how many planets any system has.
>"Somewhere between 500m and 1000m"
That's a regular start for Aurora.
>>43731479
>AURORA ON TG
YES YES YES
>>43736969
more specifically how the ship design wor
>I want to build a ship
do you have tooled a shipyard (change the shypiad to make this shipt design) for the ship design you have made if not make this
>but I dont have a ship design
to make a ship design by selcting the ship parts designs you already researched
>but ther is a ship part design I didnt researched yet
research this ship part design
>but I didnt even designed the ship design yet
do it by selcting the techs the ship design will have
>but I dont have the tech neded to create this design I want
research this tech.
more detailed than that, only if you had to research the ship design you designed (you dont, just the ship parts)
>>43736993
>This sounds like the best game ever.
This is one of those games that will be one of the best games ever after you learn how to play
but few endure what is needed to learn how to play
>>43740961
>Not Dominions or Distant Worlds
NO NO NO
>>43740363
>Are huge defense satellite possible? Halo style.
Yup. It's possible to make ships without engines and ships always come equipped with very weak 1m/s thrusters for orbit adjustment. If you have another ship you can attach it with a tractor beam and tow it around. A tug is just a ship with more engines than it needs, but a side effect of this is that they move very fast when not tugging a load so you can use them as fast couriers. A lot things follow the same setup. A satellite is a tiny ship with no engines. A sensor probe is a missile with sensors instead of a warhead. A mine is just a missile you dump overboard instead of launch.
A defensive battlestation is useful in some ways compared to ships. They don't require engines and engines can form 50-80% of a ships components. This greatly reduces the maintenance burden and allows you to stack on tons and tons of shielding and armour. Generally speaking though you can't make an effective super MAC platform, a point defense platform with ALL the lasers is more useful because it can protect the planet from long ranged missile attack while you return fire with missiles of your own.
The author of the game is supposedly working on a Newtonian version of Aurora which adds things like railgun damage per size/length and spinal mounted superguns. But that was coming *soon* and the last time I checked was 2 years ago.
>>43741092
This; if the skill curve for DF is a sheer cliff several hundred meters up, Aurora's is trying to swim up a waterfall with a ball and chain on you ankle.
>>43741105
We've done Dominions before.HAHA, TIME FOR ERMOR
>>43741164
But it isn't.
I mean, that's not what either skill curves are like.
Loads of games people think are hard just have shit UI. Dorf and Aurora are just very deep and have shit UI; but they're not hard. Not least because you can't actually win, ergo you can't actually lose.
>>43731479
>GSV
General Systems Vehicle?
Gravological/Geological Survey Vehicle
>>43739660
Fuck yeah! Space Rome, here we come!
Oh good, the thread survived the night.
>>43737463
I have no objections to space rome
It should be noted that the different empire types aren't balanced at all, and meant for NPR use, but that's fine if you're going to manually adjust our starting industry.
>Do you want the game to create ship systems and designs at start? That'll allow you to get straight to building something quickly, and you can always design more later, or you can create your own.
On the one hand, yes. Having to design an entire fleet of ships with starting tech is a massive drag. On the other hand, the auto-made designs are a bit shit, but that's less of an issue.
If you have the patience/wherewithal to manually design a fleet of starting ships yourself, then that. Otherwise, auto-generated starting ships and tech is my vote.
>>43743085
>>43743210
How does it feel to know your taste is objectively inferior?
>>43731479
Hell yeah it sounds fun. There's a thread I found doing something very similar on Something Awful, and it definitely turned out well there.
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3474164
>>43743210
I'd honestly prefer to custom design our ships. Yeah it'll be slow going, but with a communal play we could hopefully streamline some aspects.
Rolled 4, 3 = 7 (2d6)
my aurora game crashes after a couple months after starting
guess no space opera for me
>>43746907
Current idea is to let the game design the starting ships and then choose to redesign/mothball as the Senate desires. I'm fluffing a recent plague as the reason for a new Senate taking over and being stuck with the mess from the last one.
>>43743210
Empire types are a little unbalanced, but desu I don't think balance is all that important here as long as I don't let the starting industry get *too* out of wack.
Started the introductory quest thread here:
>>43749295
