Aurora - the Dwarf Fortress of 4x Space Games?

[Syt]

The dev started posting an AAR over at Wargamer:
http://www.wargamer.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=364594

Excerpt:

New London was one point seven billion kilometres from the Sol jump point and the Sol - London jump point was three billion kilometres from Sol, which made immediate reinforcement difficult. Nevertheless, the fact the aliens sensors had been detected so far out meant that Sparta was only five hundred million kilometres further away from New London than the alien ships. The Fleet Admirals made the decision to send all the available battle fleet units at 4500 km/s, leaving Sparta to be guarded by nine Arleigh Burke V destroyers and three Sentinel class missiles bases. Four Peter the Great class battlecruisers, six Tribal III class escort cruisers and eight Trafalgar III destroyer escorts raced to the rescue. Each of the four battlecruisers was loaded with one hundred and ninety SS-N-3 Scarabs. The collier Castletown followed at 3000 km/s with an extra two hundred and seventy-four SS-N-2 Sunburns.

The alien sensor contacts were on a course that would take them through the inner system but they were not on a direct course for New London. It soon became apparent they were on an intercept course for the civilian freighter en route to Roma, presumably because of its transponder emissions. While it was tempting to order the ship to disengage its transponder, if the aliens continued to track its course they would be pulled away from the centre of the system and the tempting target of New London, possibly for long enough for the task group from Sparta to arrive. For the moment, the transponder stayed active.

Twenty-five hours after the aliens were first detected in London, Fleet Headquarters was contacted by Commander Benjamin Gosselin, captain of the Arleigh Burke IV class destroyer Fitzgerald and overall commander of the small two-ship force picketing the jump point to the Tulan home system. After the Tulan asked the Commonwealth to leave their system in 2042, a force of nine older destroyers was stationed at the Sol - Vienna jump point to guard against any Tulan incursion. Over the next five years, with no sign of the Tulan, the destroyers were gradually withdrawn and scrapped until only the two Arleigh Burke IVs remained. The two Arleigh Burke IVs were laid down in 2030, before the final war on Earth, and despite delays to their construction caused by the war were eventually completed in 2033. By 2047 they were virtually obsolete. With a top speed of 2500 km/s and armed with missiles that had a maximum range of twenty-two million kilometres, they were severely outclassed by the warships of the modern Commonwealth Navy. In the near-panic after the alien contacts were reported in London, the two old ships were not even considered  as a possible response force. However, as Commander Gosselin acidly pointed out to the staffers at headquarters, the Vienna jump point was only five hundred and fifty million kilometres from the London jump point and the Fitzgerald and the Cole could be there within sixty hours, compared to a week for the battle fleet units en route from Sparta. In fact, they could have been almost halfway there if an immediate order had been sent to them as soon as the aliens were detected. The communication from Commander Gosselin was passed upward to the Fleet Admirals who realised their own oversight and ordered the two destroyers to head for London.

At 12:57 on April 23rd, thirty-nine hours after initial contact, a civilian colony ship transited into London from Sol and headed for New London to deliver its cargo. The commercial shipping of the Commonwealth was outside of military control so there was little that Rear Admiral Toyota Tetsuhiko, the governor of New London and senior officer in the London system, could do except warn it of the danger. The colony ship was much closer to New London than the aliens and the civilian captain was more interested in completing his task and heading home than worrying about alien threats. The alien contacts continued to follow a course towards the civilian freighter halfway between the Sol and Roma jump points. By this time they were three point five billion kilometres from New London and four point three billion from the freighter.

Fitzgerald and Cole arrived in London at 11:14 on April 25th and set course for New London. Eight hours later, planetary sensors on New London detected a fifth alien active sensor two hundred million kilometres astern of the first four. The fifth active sensor was less powerful, with a range of eighty million kilometres, which explained why it had only been picked up several days after the initial contact. Yaguar, the Molniya-S class scout, was closing in and was six hundred and fifty million kilometres from the four larger contacts. She was ordered to try and establish contact with all five known alien ships, even if that meant staying in their general location much longer and switching her active sensor on and off as required.

Her CO was Captain Eusébio Gonçalves, a conscientious and reliable officer who had spent most of his career in missile bases and PDCs as part of the officer corps of the Union of South American Nations. He was now more interested in promoting the fast attack concept and the technical abilities of his ship then climbing the promotion ladder. In any event, at 57 he was unlikely to advance any further in rank. Captain Gonçalves used the speed advantage of his ship to guide it around the alien contacts and approached from the aliens' port quarter. His small, difficult to detect corvette slipped inside the theoretical alien sensor range without incident and continued to close. Finally, at 17:09 on the 26th, with Yaguar just fifty-five million kilometres from the group of four alien contacts and the aliens two point five billion kilometres from New London, he ordered his tactical officer to activate the Voskhod MR-800. The active sensor detected four 12,500 ton ships, larger than anything in the Commonwealth Navy. Based on the detailed scan, they were identified as ships of the alien race in Archangelsk, or the Angels as they had become commonly known, and one ship was a different class than the other three. Yaguar disengaged her sensors less than five seconds after she activated them, then changed course to intercept the fifth contact. The alien ships did not even deviate from their course so it was possible they had not even detected the scan.

The size and speed of the alien ships, plus their powerful active sensors, suggested they were at least a match for the Commonwealth in terms of technology. The battle fleet task group, still eighty hours from London, would have its hands full, even if it arrived in time. Four hours after the close approach to the first group of ships, Yaguar moved within fifty-four million kilometres of the trailing contact and engaged its sensors once more. The fifth alien vessel was a new class of 6250 tons. As before the aliens did not react to Yaguar so Captain Gonçalves ordered his tactical officer to leave the sensors active. Still there was no response. Concluding that the aliens did not have EM sensors capable of detecting the MR-800, Captain Gonçalves suggested to the Rear Admiral Toyota that his ship maintain active sensors and pursue the larger group of aliens, moving no closer than fifty-five million kilometres. The admiral concurred. An hour after Yaguar turned to chase the large group, the single trailing alien ship changed course. At first Rear Admiral Toyota thought it had spotted Yaguar but their courses diverged and it was soon clear the alien was on an intercept course for the civilian colony ship en route to New London.

The Angel raid into London had been extremely costly for the Commonwealth. As well as twenty-three million dead, Commonwealth material losses included a space station with two 14,000 ton capacity slipways, one hundred mines, fifty maintenance facilities, three deep space tracking stations, an Arleigh Burke V class destroyer and a Sentinel class Missile Defence Base. Due to radiation and atmospheric dust caused by the bombardment, New London had dropped out of the ideal habitable range. In addition, an amount of ordnance equal to six months production by the factories on Eden was either expended or destroyed, including:

60x SS-N-3 Scarab
96x SS-N-2 Sunburn
301x SA-N-2 Gauntlet
1145x SA-N-1 Grail
192x Trident ASM
1096x Dagger AMM

Angel losses in the battle were one 12,500 cruiser and a 6250 ton destroyer, as well as minor damage to three more cruisers, although if the First Striking Force had arrived an hour sooner or had jump ship support, the other three cruisers would very likely have been destroyed. The corvettes had proven their worth as system defence ships, despite the fact that the lack of modern missiles had robbed them of much of their potential effectiveness. Only thirteen Molniyas and six Molniya-S were in service, although new construction was underway in the Xiamen-Kan shipyards. Even so, without missiles they were no use and missile production continued to be a major issue. The populations of the other colony worlds were terrified by the fate of New London and demanded far more protection than was currently assigned. On May 19th 2047, the deployments of the military forces of the Commonwealth on a system by system basis were as follows:

Washington
Populated World: Sparta
9x Arleigh Burke V DD
3x Sentinel MDB
1x Molniya-S CT

Xia
Populated World: Xiamen-Kan
4x Peter the Great II BC
3x Scharnhorst CA
6x Tribal III CLE
4x Nagato DD
8x Trafalgar III DE
3x Arleigh Burke V DD
3x Molniya CT
3x Molniya-S CT

Sol
Populated World: Mars
2x Arleigh Burke IV DD (London JP)
5x Molniya CT (London JP)
3x Guardian PDC (400 Sabre ASM)

New York
Populated Worlds: Eden, New York IV
1x Arleigh Burke V DD
2x Sentinel MDB
5x Molniya CT
1x Molniya-S CT

Lisbon
Populated World: Lisbon V
1x Arleigh Burke V DD
1x Sentinel MDB

Hannover
Populated World: Hannover-B II
2x Sentinel MDB

London
Populated World: None
4x Peter the Great II BC
6x Tribal III CLE
8x Trafalgar III DE
1x Molniya-S CT

Given the events in London it was obvious that defences were generally too light, especially for certain key worlds such as Mars. Unfortunately, the only immediate way to increase that protection was to disperse units of the two Striking Forces and that would completely sacrifice the initiative to the Angels and to the alien race in Zagorsk. In the short-term, production of Molniya class corvettes would be increased in the hope that enough missiles would be available to arm them. In the longer term, a warship that did not rely on missiles was desperately needed. Regrettably, the Commonwealth was bereft of any senior officers with expertise in energy weapons so the railgun was the best option as a primary non-missile weapon. A host of supporting technologies was required however, including beam fire control and capacitor recharge so development of such a warship would be neither quick nor easy. Sparta was in the midst of developing Stellarator Fusion Reactor technology as a pre-requisite to a new and more powerful drive so any weapon development would fall on the small research colony on New York IV, which had just six research facilities.

On June 13th in the Smolensk system, the Arleigh Burke V destroyer Forrest Sherman was on a mission to test the new recon drones. She moved within two hundred million kilometres of the Zagorsk jump point and launched a single SR-N-1 Raven. The drone took eighteen hours to cover the distance at 3000 km/s and found no sign of any alien ships. Whichever alien vessel had pursued Littorio toward the Zagorsk - Smolensk jump point had either left Smolensk or had moved somewhere else within the planetless system. Forrest Sherman headed for the Smolensk - Archangelsk jump point to carry out a second Raven launch.

Meanwhile, in London, the Fleet Support Vessel Aconcagua and the colliers Castletown and Ramsey had rendezvoused with the First Striking Force forty-eight million kilometres from the Budapest jump point. Andrea Doria was still en route, one billion kilometres away. All the battlecruisers were brought up to their full loadout of Scarabs, except for Tsar Alexander II which included four SS-N-2 Sunburns in its magazines, while three Tribals received a total of eight hundred SA-N-3 Gauntlets, partially replenishing the anti-missile missiles used in the last engagements. Castletown, which carried a further two hundred and seventy SS-N-2 Sunburns, remained with the fleet while Ramsey, her magazines empty, headed back to Sparta.

Andrea Doria arrived at the First Striking Force late on June 16th. Rear Admiral Scott detached two Tribal IIIs as escorts and sent her ahead to the Budapest jump point while the rest of his force moved to a point five million kilometres away. Close enough to the jump point to react quickly to any attack but far enough away to avoid any attack by beam-armed warships. At 01:49 on the 17th, Andrea Doria and her escorts jumped into Budapest. They arrived sixteen thousand kilometres from the jump point and the jump cruiser detected a single thermal contact on the jump point with a strength of 800. The Angel cruisers that had raided London had a thermal signature of 1120 so this was a different class of ship. All three Commonwealth had active sensors but they were still suffering from the effects of the jump and could remain inoperable for up to a minute.

Within a few seconds of the three Commonwealth ship jumping into the system, the contact at the jump point moved away at 4761 km/s. The two escorts were only armed with anti-missile missiles, which would have to be used in considerable numbers to harm a ship, and for the moment fire controls were as useless as active sensors. Commodore Valéria Mendoça, captain of the Tribal Shawnee and the senior officer of the small task group, ordered her ships to the jump point. The unknown ship continued moving away and showed no sign of firing on the Commonwealth force so she decided to hold position until active sensors were available. Forty-five seconds later Andrea Doria's Voskhod MR-800 came on line, revealing a new class of Angel ship with a size of 8400 tons. No other contacts were detected within fifty-seven million kilometres of the jump point. Leaving the two escorts in Budapest, Andrea Doria jumped into London, reported the situation and then transited back into Budapest.

Twenty minutes later, Aconcagua, Peter the Great and Tsar Alexander II jumped into Budapest. By this time the Angel ship that had been on the jump point was six million kilometres away. Aconcagua jumped back into London to bring the next two battlecruisers while Peter the Great and Tsar Alexander II waited for their fire control systems to recover from transit effects. Forty seconds later, they each fired ten SS-N-3 Scarabs at the fast retreating ship. The missiles took just eight minutes to reach their target, which immediately vanished from Commonwealth sensors, replaced by the beacons of life pods. This Angel ship was plainly less well protected than the cruisers that entered London. The destroyer Orion was dispatched to pick up any Angel survivors. In the meantime, Aconcagua and Andrea Doria escorted the rest of the First Striking Force into Budapest.

The game's site is:
http://aurora.pentarch.org/

Quite honestly, just looking at the screenshots and the info in them makes my head spin and explode. Screenshots in this forum (no direct linking of attached screens, it seems):
http://aurora.pentarch.org/viewforum.php?f=20


Yes, map sucks.

It has super detailed planet management, super detailed planet systems (with planets, moons etc.), super detailed ship design and combat (seemingly akin to Harpoon or, if you remember it, Rules of Engagement), leaders, carrier combat (boarding still missing).

Regarding invasions:

There are planetary invasions, ground-combat between two populations on the same planet and ground assaults on planetary defence centres. There is no boarding combat yet but it is on the (long) to do list. Ground forces are organised into divisions, with each one having the option for a commander who can boost it's combat strength. The types of ground units include Heavy Assault (strong attack and defence), Mobile Infantry (with good defence and weaker attack), Assault Infantry (the reverse), Garrison (good defence, no attack) and Headquarters (no attack, weak defence)

The commander of the senior Headquarters on a planet provides a bonuses to all troops on the planet. Using a different bonus, the HQ commander can also train other divisions, increasing their capability over time. There are also low-tech infantry and low-tech armour divisions, which represent our current military capability in a game that starts with our existing tech base. Finally, there are Replacement Divisions, which I'll explain below.

Each type of ground unit has a base attack and defence strength which is modified by the unit's readiness, it's morale, the ground combat bonus of it's commander and the senior HQ commander and the general ground combat tech level of the parent Empire. Both readiness and morale are reduced by combat, although in certain circumstances combat can also result in a rise in morale. If readiness reaches zero the unit is destroyed. Morale returns relatively quickly but readiness returns very slowly unless you have a replacement division. In the latter case, readiness returns much more quickly and the readiness of the replacement divisions fall by an equivalent amount until it is eliminated. Morale can also be raised above 100% by training (as mentioned above)

Ground combat is not always necessary as you can bombard enemy ground forces from orbit. However, orbital bombardment causes considerable collateral damage to industry and results in enviromental damage in terms of radiation and atmospheric dust. Also, if a ground unit is in a well-protected planetary defence centre it is going to take a lot of firepower to dig it out. As long as you don't plan on using the planet afterwards, that isn't a huge problem. However, if you want to capture the population for its industry, research facilities, etc, as well as it's potential wealth generating capacity once it finally gets used to the occupation, then ground combat is a much better option.

Specialised Troop Transport modules exist so an assault ship or troop ship can be designed around them.

As with everything else in Aurora you can rename divisions so if you want to take the 1st Marine Division into space, you can

[KRonn]

Looks interesting; certainly lots of detail it seems. I found where to get the game from, on the forum. A bit confusing perhaps - seems you can download the entire game without paying anything?

Has anyone tried this game?

[Syt]

Yeah, it's a lone developer doing this for fun. Some guys on Wargamer are trying it, but I lack the time and focus right now, but I thought some folks here might be interested.

[KRonn]

Yeah, it's a lone developer doing this for fun. Some guys on Wargamer are trying it, but I lack the time and focus right now, but I thought some folks here might be interested.

Kind of how the game Stars! was developed. Fun game, a bit tedious, but had some novel ideas and game interfaces/configurable windows to it.

[Josquius]

hmm...looks a bit better than dwarf fortress, not all dossy at least.
May give it a look but will probally not be able to figure anything out.

[The Brain]

I liked Imperium.

[Norgy]

Looks interesting; certainly lots of detail it seems.

Interesting is an understatement. It looks like something I could waste months and forget to eat playing.

Thanks, Syt, for making me slimmer. 

[Syt]

Glad to help, Norgs.

Post an AAR if you get into it.

[Norgy]

Just need to play the death out of HoI3 first.

And, you know, maybe get some canned goods and some frozen foodstuffs.

[Josquius]

I'm going to give it a crack.
Hope its a bit more user friendly than dwarf fortress...

[sbr]

Has anyone tried this game?  I dl'ed it yesterday and poked around at it a bit, but am having a hard time figuring out how to do anything.

[Syt]

Has anyone tried this game?  I dl'ed it yesterday and poked around at it a bit, but am having a hard time figuring out how to do anything.

No, my laptop's resolution is too small. There was a longer thread on Wargamer somewhere, and I hear the Aurora forum itself is pretty helpful.

[Fireblade]

This fucking game makes the Space Empire series look like farmville.

[sbr]

blue emu started an AAR thread on this over at EUOT the other day and I decided to give it another shot.  I have not been this sucked into a game in a long, long time.  I spent most of the nicest weekend of the year inside playing this.  If you can deal with the text and menu driven game it is really interesting once you figure out what the hell is going on.

[Fireblade]

blue emu started an AAR thread on this over at EUOT the other day and I decided to give it another shot.  I have not been this sucked into a game in a long, long time.  I spent most of the nicest weekend of the year inside playing this.  If you can deal with the text and menu driven game it is really interesting once you figure out what the hell is going on.

Asshole, don't tempt me into downloading it.