Is Aurora 4x a good game or does it just have a bunch of meaningless stats and numbers to give the illusion of complexity like stellaris?
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Is Aurora 4x a good game or does it just have a bunch of meaningless stats and numbers to give the illusion of complexity like stellaris?
It's very autistic.
Very, very autistic.
That's just a meme that's irrelevant to if the game is actually good or not.
>that's irrelevant
Not at all. If a game can be accurately called austistic you've already cut out most players. See the popularity of strat games in general or roguelikes (not lites, don't even start). So if someone tells you this is very, very autistic you will not like the game - not think it is good - unless you can interact comfortably with very autistic games.
If I tell you Shadow Empire's logistics was good (which it is/was) that would still run counter to most players who refused to engage on that level.
Fricking moron.
Roguelike is not any more a niche genre than RPGs.
You're delusional if you truly think this. Either because you use the wrong definition for Roguelikes, or because you have no grip on reality and think people pretending to play Dwarf Fortress suddenly means there's massive droves of people playing Angband or Stonesoup
You're delusional if you don't think a large part of modern genres aren't directly or indirectly derived from people playing roguelikes. But you're already delusional if you think strat games aren't popular while Starcraft still exists. What are not popular are wargames and 4x.
>rts
>more representative of strat than 4x and wargames
>derived
You said RLs are as popular as RPGs. You did not say 'devs were inspired by RL so a lot of its elements are no longer niche'. You are back pedaling like a motherfricker because you were very wrong.
>>rts
>>more representative of strat than 4x and wargames
Stopped reading there when you moved the goalposts.
Says the c**t moving the goal posts. Please show me an RL as popular as even a single bethesda game. As KOTOR. As BG3. As Dragon Age. As Mass Effect.
You are a slimy motherfricker. I have to believe you're doing this intentionally at this stage.
>If I tell you Shadow Empire's logistics was good (which it is/was)
There is at least one /vst/ poster who will REEEEEEEEEE at you if he ever saw this and I'm glad I got here before he did
Okay but please answer the question, people said the same thing about distant worlds when its really just a basic b***h 4x
Nobody here is smart enough to play a game like that
They'd rather play children paradox games
True unfortunately
>is it a good game?
I enjoyed it but I don't care about graphics and have infinite patience for dog shit UX design.
It gives you an incredible level of control over a lot of things that are usually highly abstracted in other space 4x games so if that's what you are after and you can deal with the presentation then yea it might be a good game for you.
I think DW: U's scale alone moves it out of the basic b***h category, let alone the pacing or level control you have over your empire. What would you say isn't a basic b***h space 4x?
If you click automate then yes dw:u and especially dw 2 is basic b***h level
Aurora is so autistic i needed to switch languages cause it uses dots and not commas, so the excel spreadsheet engine frickin dies if you keep using commas. I like to call these games borderline text delirium. Same as rule the waves 3
You need to be truly passionate about these types of games to get good
Early game aurora is pretty satylisfying imho
>rule the waves 3
i was total naval novice and i played that game, its not really that hard just looks intimidating cause it has UI of database from windows 95
It's a terrible shallow garbage that hides behind numbers.
I think Space Empire IV is the best space 4x every made. Problem is the AI, as with most games of this type and scale. Could be fixed by playing a PBEM game.
Is there a community anymore for it
It tries to come up with an engine that lets you do basically anything but a very few specific runs (ie no nomadic fleet a la quarians)
the dev achieved this by letting you customize basically anything, though some stuff tbh is merely dressing.
past that, it is a basic b***h 4x. just more complex.
A4X isn't a game really, it's a simulation.
its an illusion of complexity behind autistic UI. It's no more deep than distant worlds. The only deep parts are ship design and fleet combat
Makes sense considering the software's origin in helping to automate a PnP game
How automated is the game? I always got the impression that you have to set up and micromanage everything. Also what do you do besides build ships, fight aliens, and change the atmospheric composition of planets?
Are the battles at least simulated like command operation games?
Battles are simulated down to the ship level, you have complete control over your fleet’s heading, speed, active sensors, etc. There’s two engagement ranges: missile range and projectile/beam range. Missile range can be anywhere between a few thousand km to millions, good missile design is important. Beam range is basically point blank, so whichever fleet is faster controls the battle.
>UI doesn't fit in on notebook screen
>no sliders
AAAAAAAAAAAA
Also unlike it at least distant worlds can actually run a game to completion.
>Is Aurora 4x a good game
that homosexual removed the cool old icons when he went to c#
that's not a game, it's a full time job
It's okay. It's not even really a 4x game as you aren't bound to encounter aliens. It's more of a management game. Like what if you ran a logistics company in Kerbal Space Program more autistic cousin Children of a Dead Earth. You spend most of the game figuring out the bare minimum resource cost to complete a task so you don't run out.
dozens of UI screens that need to be open at all times, configure anything you want (for optimal builds you can convert multiple ships from cheaply use calculator)
it's a grand simulation but falls short on a few disappointing aspects: only the atmosphere is important for habitation calculations, where are my irradiated/barren/sunken/world modifiers? it's diplomacy is lacking, stellaris may not be as simulationst but way more accessable and user friendly
How is its diplomacy? It has it, right?
Schizophrenic
You have to be in contact with a civilization for an extended period of time to learn their language. In contact means have assets in the same system in which at least one side can detect the other.
Generally speaking even peaceful AI don't like you hanging out in their territory, so trying to learn to speak will make them hate you.
Also a lot of AI will refuse any co-operation and thus all this effort is wasted as they'll never be peaceful
> Generally speaking even peaceful AI don't like you hanging out in their territory, so trying to learn to speak will make them hate you.
Also a lot of AI will refuse any co-operation and thus all this effort is wasted as they'll never be peaceful
realistic first contact
You gotta have a diplomatic ship with 50-ton active sensor AT MOST, anything larger will decrease diplomatic score. Yes the NPR will still b***h at you, but the diplomatic ship will improve the diplomatic relations faster than it's presence reduces them.
Ship design and economy in Aurora are interesting. Combat can occasionally be interesting but is generally the most tedious aspect. I wish research was more elaborate. I also wish everything had tooltips.
use AuroraPatch mod to change the color theme so you don't have to rape your retinas with the dogshit vanilla theme that Steve is so autistic about
https://github.com/Aurora-Modders/AuroraPatch
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wxvqinsv9fh2qxm/DeepBlueTheme.zip?dl=0
last I heard about this game (a few years ago) was that people were finally starting to mod it, and the dev's response was to... threaten to take down the game and stop developing it
did he fold then? honestly I dont see how someone this autistic can end up compromising
He did, basically he has a forum for "approved mods" and if you have anything outside of that and make a bug report he gets really upset.
why don't more folks make games like this
Please share your opinion regarding the following scenarios:
* a space race with multiple countries on Earth, and the conflict being mainly between them on a colonial level, with the end-game being either Earth becoming irrelevant or a ground war resulting in world conquest.
* corporations and independence movements (genetically-modified miners, robots) resulting in new factions being formed over the course of the game that cause the exploration to evolve into a 4X.
* a 'normal' 4X where Earth is unified under one government and you compete against aliens who coincidentally entered space at around the same time.
* as any above, except you are an alien and humans are either elsewhere or nonpresent.
Also, do you actually like Aurora's use of actual windows, or would it be better if it was like Stellaris where the game is full-screen and there are just 'fake' windows and menus?
>* a space race with multiple countries on Earth, and the conflict being mainly between them on a colonial level, with the end-game being either Earth becoming irrelevant or a ground war resulting in world conquest.
>* corporations and independence movements (genetically-modified miners, robots) resulting in new factions being formed over the course of the game that cause the exploration to evolve into a 4X.
bofadeeze
>* a space race with multiple countries on Earth, and the conflict being mainly between them on a colonial level, with the end-game being either Earth becoming irrelevant or a ground war resulting in world conquest.
I know Steve did an AAR series with that exact concept years ago. It inspired. me enough to try it on my own, but I didn't like controlling all the empires manually, and the AI is not meant for that sort of thing. If I ever try it again, I'll only be doing two or three empires.
I'm doing the first scenario meself right now, starting year 1992. It's an entirely different experience since there's a sence of hurry with truce counting down, racing to secure any juicy systems and an absolute need to have fleet at all times ready to contest space superiority over Earth at any given moment. First time I actually had to bother making more than one naval base in Sol due to the simple fact that any pure-missile armed units on earth's orbit will die before the missiles even leave the tubes.
is it still practically unplayable since it's a heap of spaghetti code that collapses on itself once you get a bit into the game?
Does the dev still obfuscate the code because he's paranoid people will steal his amazing game a dozen people actually play?
Yeah. I especially love how the dev hate modding, because he'd "have to waste way too much time looking at modded bug reports" And then he spent far longer trying to come up with ways to frick over people trying to mod the game than he ever would have spent reading modded bug reports if he just added a line at the top saying if the game is modded or not.
Porting the game code over to c# did make the game actually playable. It’s still probably a spaghetti mess, but at least you don’t have to wait for the game to write all database updates to disk every fricking time you pass a turn.
it means he's scared of someone more competent than he is taking the game out of his hands and doing it better
Do aurora players just not share custom starts at all? I'd like to play something besides Sol start and I don't have a huge preference, just a desire for something different. Because of this I have no interest in spending several hours making a scenario myself.
As far as I can tell nobody uploads db files to share custom starts they have made. Why?
And I'm autistic, would an autist like it? That's the question
Yeah of course, try it out.
Feel free to ask questions, I'll help if I can
https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10635.0
https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=13049.0
https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=13077.0
micromanagement hell: the game
It would be a lot better with Diaspora's agent system. It's so fricking obnoxious only being able to make a loop or use the extremely limited standing orders.
>Diaspora's agent system
>create an order set to automate your fleets!
>only only fleet per order set, please
>you have to define a new order set for every fleet
>and when you're done you have to go to a different menu to link the order set to the applicable fleet
>oh based on how cargo is allocated every fleet will be flying one leg full and the return leg empty
>enjoy the game!
Yeah I'll stick with assigning orders at the fleet level thanks.
The agent system is so close to being good. I think the main thing it needs is to be able to define fleet categories, and set up predefined order sets using those categories.
Let's say you set up a fleet category called "Spare Parts Supplier". You can then set up a predefined order set that looks for any fleet in the same system that needs spare parts, deliver tbem, and when the delivery fleet runs low, it grabs more spare parts from the nearest fleet in the "Spare Parts Supplier" category that's in the same system. Then you can quickly throw that order set on a delivery fleet in every system you're currently using, and as long as you make sure there's another fleet in the Spare Parts Supplier category, it should work with minimal extra work from you.
Yeah that's not how it works though. As implemented it sucks. It sucks worse than just selecting a fleet and giving it an order set. The whole game sucks, it's barely a game at all.
So? You'd have more capability. I'd much rather have to use two menus and be able to use one fleet to distribute shit to multiple colonies than just not be able to
You can do that in Aurora, just have one fleet fly around to each colony.
The system isn't really designed to do that in diaspora because there's no fuel and resources are infinite so transport efficiency is irrelevant. You just make a fleet for every item and every colony.
>complexity like Stellaris
I know this is bait but you've hooked me nonetheless.
>the illusion of complexity like stellaris
What's happening with the relativistic physics version of the game the guy or someone was making?
Newtonian Aurora died in ~2015 when he started thinking about re-writing regular Aurora in C instead.
good call honestly, C# took a while, newtonian would've been in developement for 10 years before any playable release was in sight
any luck decompiling the code?
I really like the idea of sperging out about missiles and ship classes and shit like that but my autism is hyperfocused on that so I don't think I can learn aurora
Multi-nation starts on a single homeworld are kind of lame because plot is the only thing that keeps them from fighting a decisive conflict on the starter world. It's much more interesting when they're spread out through the system and at low tech so a fight between Mars and Saturn is on the same scale as a war between systems in a more traditional scenario.
Just do a scenario similar to CHoaDE, where earth has been sterilised and there are only a couple of major powers who got anyone off world in habs. Actually, that sounds great - you could have each nation fighting to get a decent chunk of the factories/mines/infrastructure off earth, while trying to build enough infrastructure on luna/mars/Ceres etc etc
Better yet, use the decaying orbit disaster setting to make it a race against time to get everything offplanet and scramble for solar real estate with the other faction. This would eliminate the issue anon mentioned earlier with just doing a ground invasion to resolve the conflict.
They decaying orbit disaster has a lot of issues, it's probably safer to just do proper setup where somebody owns earth and moon, somebody owns mars, and somebody owns all the jovian moons in various states of terraforming, and then adjust available resources, industries, population, and starting tech/fleet in order to create some kind of parity. You don't actually need parity though because multi-playing isn't very fun so you're probably doing it for your forum AAR and in that case you can do as much plot as you want.
It's a real shame that there is no real ability for multiply games - with a similar set up to STARS!, where each player sends their actions to a central game master. Would make for interesting times.
Supposedly some people on the forums are working on a prototype multiplayer version of Aurora. No idea how far they’ve gotten with it, though.
fighting a decisive conflict on homeplanet is a big gamble, because you can't bet on the A.I just having all orbital assets prioritizing fire on deleting your army.
nevertheless it is interesting to watch WW3 break out without your involvement save for the radioactive nuclear winter you now have to deal with
I miss Vb6 aesthetics like crazy...
I love all the new shit especially performance and mouse control on the map but there was something magical in good old vb6 spreadsheets..