Inactive AURORA: The Great Game - Gauging interest

[GarfunkeL]

Johannes wrote in. That leaves only Absalom and JagreenLern without input. The former promised to send his orders soon(ish), haven't heard from the latter in a while.

 

[Phelot]

Still no word?

 

[GarfunkeL]

Both PM'd me, game will start running again soon(ish).

 

[Krash]

This might just be the coolest thread on the codex in... well forever. Really hope this will run for a long time.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Ok, I'm still missing Absalom sending me all the details but we've waited long enough so his planetary governor will have to suffice. Game continuing.

 

[GarfunkeL]

MAINTENANCE FOR DUMMIES

There are four kinds of maintenance in the game:

1. Civilian maintenance
   • Does not require maintenance supplies or facilities, as it is done automatically through the larger size of civilian engines, multiple redundancies and so on. Any ship that is classed as a Commercial vessel thus does not require any maintenance, ever, no matter what it is doing. Note that adding almost any kinds of sensors or weapons will turn a Commercial ship into a Military one.
   • Exceptions are passive thermal and EM sensors if they are small enough and geological survey sensors and CIWS self-defence systems.
   • Civilian ships do not have Maintenance Clocks and cannot be overhauled.
2. Routine military maintenance
   • Handled by Maintenance Facilities or Maintenance Ships in orbit of a colony. Requires very small amounts of minerals but no maintenance supplies.
   • The minerals required depends on the modules that ship in-orbit carry. Engines require Sorium and so on
   • As long as there are sufficient minerals and facilities, military ships will not run their Maintenance Clocks and thus will not need overhauling.
   • The maximum maintenance capability of all MFs and MSs on a colony is counted for each ship. This means that the total tonnage at a colony does not matter, as long as none of the hips are larger than the maximal capability.
   • Boat bays and hangars act as MF for the parasite vessels in them.
3. In-the-field military maintenance
   • Handled by ship's crew through usage of Maintenance Supplies after a component breaks down.
   • If there are not enough M-Supplies on-board at that time, the component is marked as broken and needs to be repaired either through Damage Control or on a Shipyard.
   • Field maintenance does not reduce Maintenance Clocks, thus ships will need overhauling at some point.
4. Damage Control
   • Handled by ship's crew through through usage of Maintenance Supplies after a broken component is selected for DC in the combat tab.
   • Duration of repair depends on the size of the component and the number of engineering sections and damage control modules on-board.
   • All DC repairs require twice the amount of Maintenance Supplies
   • DC does not reduce Maintenance Clocks, thus ships will need overhauling afterwards.

Maintenance Clock - what is it, what will it do and how should I deal with it?
Maintenance Clock is the aggregate time for all the components on-board a ship, that they have been on a mission and away from routine maintenance. A component may break even if MC is 0.01 but it may not break even if the MC is 99.99. Though the higher the MC, the more likely it is that something will break. Maintenance Clock can be winded back through Overhauling at a colony with sufficient Maintenance Facilities. One month of overhaul is enough to reduce MC by three months. So a TG that has been away from Earth for three years, will need to spend a full year just fixing itself and repainting the corridors. Ships in overhaul cannot do anything else and overhaul is extremely difficult to cancel - as it really means that all the cables are being replaced, computers get upgraded, mechanical parts replaced and so on and so forth.
So it is useful to overhaul any military ships before a campaign and it's also useful to rotate ships on a regular basis - real world navies use the 1/3 principle: 3rd of the Fleet is on station, 3rd is in training/moving to station and last 3rd is under overhaul at port. Aurora simulates this excellently.
There are ways to fiddle the numbers to give you an advantage. The more Engineering Spaces a ship has, the more likely it'll be that nothing breaks down and even if it does, they will have plenty of maintenance supplies at-hand to repair it. It is possible to build a civilian maintenance storage vessels to accompany any long-duration TGs. As engines and sensors are the two worst MSP hogs, it is entirely possible to build special vessels with extremely long performance: kill-satellites and star bases being the two examples, as you can support them through giant sensors on PDCs (that do not require maintenance) and having no engines, they require much less maintenance than actual ships - though this means that they are much more vulnerable as well.
So, to sum it up:

1. Overhaul military ships often to reduce the consumption of maintenance supplies or keep them orbiting a colony with sufficient facilities
2. Only use DC on mission critical components - full repairs can be done at a SY afterwards
3. Civilian ships need no maintenance, thus they can undertake extremely long missions and can be much larger than any military ship
4. Fighters and Fast Attack Craft can safely stay in hangars, no matter where that hangar is
5. Vessels without engines and with only small Fire Control sensors can be stocked up with engineering spaces and thus remain on-station for very long periods of time

Any questions, pop them here and I'll try to answer.
January 2014 done, events sent to players.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Global News Network
Space Engineering Section
26th June 2014

EUROPEAN SPACE PORT NOW FUNCTIONAL

A veritable horde of political dignitaries and the ambassadors of nearly every nation were at hand when earlier today the European Spaceport in Bavaria was officially opened. Amongst the people present were the board members and CEO of the first European commercial space shipping line, Sailer Freight Line, currently the only commercial operator present...

Now with both a functioning Mass Driver and a Spaceport, there is nothing stopping the EU from a far more active exploitation of space. Some analysts have stated that this is their primary goal - utilizing the orbit for industrial and scientific purposes, on a scale only imagined before. It is rumoured that an actual space ship yard could now be built. No comment has been forthcoming from the EU press office.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Game stopped on 1st July 2014, waiting for critical input.

 

[Destroid]

Oh wow, I'm quite shocked that we are playing with maintenance on, giving the micromanagement penalty it incurs.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Game moving again. I have decided to make a change in the event reporting system - I will no longer update administrator/scientists skills monthly, as it was slowing down the game significantly.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Whoops, forgot to write here that game was paused. Well, it's moving again. End-of-year reports coming this weekend.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Or not. Game stopped, waiting for critical input from several players.

 

[GarfunkeL]

2014 is over! Reports will be in your inboxes soon. No decisions required, so the game will automatically continue as soon as I finish them.

 

[SerratedBiz]

Could you lazy fuckers post some kind of LARP for us to know what's going on?

 

[Cassidy]

Africa is becoming a superpower.

For now this is the most interesting news.

 

[Merkwürdigliebe]

Could you lazy fuckers post some kind of LARP for us to know what's going on?

Oh I would but I sort of want to keep my current plans secret until I set them in motion properly. In a year or two shit is going to happen. :D

I guess the same is going on for every one else as well, just building up and teching.

 

[Destroid]

Could you lazy fuckers post some kind of LARP for us to know what's going on?

We are all mostly earthbound at the moment so there really isn't a great deal of stuff that can happen.

 

[Cassidy]

Also GarfunkeL, why didn't you turn on Sun Warming or Sun Cooling 1% per year ITZ?

 

[GarfunkeL]

I might do that at some point, if the players become too complacent.

I have to write an important presentation for tomorrow (Monday), which means that I don't have time to write the rest of the annual reports now. I'll get back to them after I've finished with uni work.

 

[GarfunkeL]

All reports sent, necessary decisions received, game is continuing.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Global News Network
Breaking News
11th March 2015

ARGENTINA JOINS WITH BRAZIL

Tumultuous news from the Latin-America: Brazilian and Argentinian diplomats have just announced the conclusion of over a year of negotiations and talks with the aim of uniting the two largest countries in South-America. An announcement will be published shortly.

 

[Phelot]

Address from the Greatest Representation of African Unity: Robert Mugabe

The African Union welcomes recent news of Brazil and Argentina's marriage into what could be known as the "HueJa Alliance." Brazil has a long history of human rights and defiance towards expansionist Western Devilry and Colonialism. As former colonial slaves to these powers, the AU welcomes this announcement of friendship from former slave nations. The AU is an example of continental unity and peace and it is expected that the HueHueJaJa shall be the same.

 

[Cassidy]

​

Syndicalist Confederation of the Liberators of South America​

Libertadores​

​

​

Divided by nationality. United by the same ideal.​

A New Era of PROSPERITY and true independence will begin for all of South America​

One hundred years ago, the powderkeg that started the Russian Revolution was about to explode and the brave comrades of the young CNT were struggling against a declining monarchy. The seeds for socialism to sprout were planted, yet unfortunately the opportunity as wasted as the dictatorship of the "proletariat" usurped from the workers their dignity and emancipation, leading to, like Mikhail Bakunin predicted, the development of a tyranny where the State owned everyone as slaves. After the fall of the failed Soviet Union, the bourgeois gloated over a certain victory while capitalism continued its road towards barbarism, to the point certain reactionaries claimed such moment was the "end of history", and humanity would have no further political developments, only eternal false democracies.

They were wrong. For ideals won't die this easily no matter how much brainwashing with retarded and idiotized forms entertainment coupled with delusional religions they provide to alienate the people, for a dividing line in the history of South America is set now.

In the distant past, during the early years of the independence struggle for different peoples of South America, there were men such as Simon Bolivar and José de San Martín, who had a dream driven by the ideals of forging a truly strong nation to be able to withstand less obvious forms of foreign colonialism and exploitation than those of their former masters: the dream of an united South America, standing tall against all those who seek to subjugate her.

But such dream was impossible under the ambitions of countless of petty plantation owners and easily bribed rulers, and the imperialists of this continent, Kwanzania, knew that the best way to ensure their supremacy over America was through the tried and tested method of "divide and conquer": Where once there were only Gran Colombia, United Provinces of South America(La Plata), Chile, Peru-Bolivian Confederacy and Brazil, the continent was segregated into dozens of smaller countries, more easily subjugated by imperialism this way. For there was no true essence to unite them, even though they spoke the same language and had many cultural similarities, those alone are not enough, and some meddling of the United States sealed the next centuries of South American history for the next centuries: disunited, weak, practically exploitation colonies for their new master.

The men like Simon Bolivar who fought for a dream of independence of South America were know by the simple title of Libertadores: Liberators. Their ultimate goal was less successful than they hope, but never died. And once again the struggle shall carry on through new Libertadores. The Libertadores of Argentina, from a recently successful socialist uprising, have given what is only the first of many steps to finally accomplish this dream: together with Brazil they now form the Syndicalist Confederation of the Liberators of South America, an old idea given a new direction, and this time, unlike the phantoms of failed socialist attempts of the 20th century, we shall succeed.

No matter the cost. We shall succeed. For our most precious gift is the true freedom of our people, and we will defend it to the last breath. Never again shall imperialism crush and steal from us!

Related News:

​

Is it worth to risk countless lives on such a tiny piece of land and end with a fiasco as great as the first Falklands conflict, specially now that petroleum was made nearly obsoleted with the discovery of TN-materials?​

​

Integration of Argentina as a member-nation of the Libertadores strengthens the "Las Malvinas son Argentinas" movement. Popular manifestations for pressuring the Argentinian claim over the Falkland Islands intensify.​

Buenos Aires,

The old debacle over the Falklands is very far from a buried subject in the mind of many Argentinians. With the recent integration of Argentina with Brazil, some of the more dedicated followers of the movement for pressuring the return of the Falklands to Argentina now believe their nation is now gifted with an unequal opportunity to pressure the United Kingdom to concede it. Manifestations happened in the city of Buenos Aires, gathering around fifty thousand activists waving banners ranging from the weird "AR?AR? gibe Malvinas plz. I report u" to the aggressive: "Malvinas a Argentina o Guerra!" (Falklands to Argentina or War!), they spent two hours spreading pamphlets and speaking loudly to the curious public.

For now, neither the Brazilian representative Alvaro Adorno nor the Argentinian revolutionary leader known only as "Rey de un ojo"(1eyedking), also know for giving an extremely high worth to "art" on any form of entertainment he purveys, gave any opinions about the Falklands claim, although it is known that the Brazilians don't care at all about it and because of how any kind of gunboat diplomacy on the matter would require an absolute majority aproval through direct voting, it is unlikely this will lead to real political consequences.

Other news: Bee flying vertically chosen as the symbol of the future Libertadores Space Force.

 

[Phelot]

British Colonials rape the fair landscape of Malvina with their foul herds of sheep.

 

[Hellraiser]

British Colonials rape the fair landscape of Malvina with their foul herds of sheep, thus furthering the plutocratic agenda of the City banksters!

fixed