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Messages - Bremen

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436
Other Games / Re: Minecraft - It has blocks.
« on: October 05, 2011, 02:42:47 am »
Quote from: Ivefan on October 05, 2011, 02:39:11 am
So.. the IC2 wiki went fubar and i dont remember most of the recipes. Currently wanting to make a batbox & an EC-Meter. anyone remembers them?

As I recall, a batbox is a line of 3 batteries down the middle, three lumber bottom, two more lumber in the top corners, and something else (cable?) top middle. No idea on the meter.

If you're using technic you can craft a recipe book with either book+crafting table or book+squid ink.

437
Other Games / Re: [Article]Industry heads claim up to 90% of games are pirated versions
« on: October 01, 2011, 06:57:11 pm »
Quote from: Zangi on October 01, 2011, 05:44:16 pm
Piracy wouldn't happen so much if the software was easily available for sale to everyone outside the target audience...
Congratulations, you have +Sales and -Pirates! Oh yea, never going to happen.  Costs too much to make it available like that and they can use it as a bloated excuse.

Do they even account for people buying legit and pirating cause of the DRM?  Heck, ton of people just skip over the first part of the equation since... why even bother?

i have to agree with this. Steam is the best DRM ever invented, not because it's harder to pirate but because it's easier to not pirate.

438
Other Games / Re: Aurora - The Dwarf Fortress of 4X Games
« on: October 01, 2011, 12:34:00 pm »
Quote from: Jacob/Lee on October 01, 2011, 11:09:40 am
Cool, thanks.

I assume you get RP if you find "technical details" of something? My engineers dug up a mine and found details for mining production 60.

You just flat get the tech. It can be pretty crazy when you get several mining/construction tech finds in a row.

439
Other Games / Re: [Article]Industry heads claim up to 90% of games are pirated versions
« on: October 01, 2011, 09:29:29 am »
The 90% mention is an actual figure, IIRC. I forget the game (World of Goo?) but it had 10x as many copies of the game submit to the public scoreboard as actually sold. And submitting scores was an opt-in feature in the game :P.

Quote from: Pillow_Killer on October 01, 2011, 08:42:35 am
Because if the sales numbers were disclosed, they would lose their point. THere's no correlation between piracy and sales. Pirates dont buy games, they never would - so no sale was lost. Those who do buy them are not pirates - they bought a copy and never caused any harm to the company. They understand, and they dont want to admit that since that would mean defeat in the censorship control. Moreover, oh boy, CAPCOM CEO? The same CAPCOM that delivers nothing but shitty half-assed console ports and generic resprited fighters(And then try to sell tons of DLCs on it, because the most powerful chars come in DLC, so anyone playing multi competively will HAVE to buy the DLCs) Oh oh, I wonder why are they losing sales, but it's probably not their shitty business practice of releasing crap.

In truth, I think it's really the middle ground here. Not all pirated copies are lost sales, but some people would buy a game if it weren't pirate-able. A lot of people use DRM free games selling well (IE, Witcher 2) as evidence against this, but the problem is we don't know how well they would have sold without piracy; in most cases where I see this example, the game in question sells well because it's a really good game.

For example, awhile back Sins of a Solar Empire released with no DRM and sold well. It was a fun game, and I bought it (didn't even "demo" it first with a pirated copy); but whenever I played it multiplayer everyone wanted to use hamachi instead of the legit servers (I'm sure you can guess why). The game still did well, but it became obvious to me that a lot more people pirated it than bought it. Combined with my first point, yes, Piracy does hurt sales, possibly significantly, though nowhere near the level of a lost sale for each pirated copy.

However, I'm still not in favor of DRM. This is because current types of DRM simply don't work; they might delay a pirated copy by a week, but even that's optimistic, and the more aggressive ones are a pain for legitimate users. Right now, sadly, the best option for game companies is to go DRM free and write off piracy as a necessary evil. If someone came up with crack-proof DRM that didn't noticeably impact legitimate users, I'd be all for that being on every game ever.

440
Other Games / Re: Aurora - The Dwarf Fortress of 4X Games
« on: September 30, 2011, 04:08:02 pm »
Quote from: Sowelu on September 30, 2011, 03:56:56 pm
Aha, so the primary purpose of picket is to avoid detection?  Why not just end with "move to", won't a target with no orders do the same?

I guess that once you see an active sensor pulse, you can strafe for almost one missile reload and then engine kill to dodge missiles, yeah?

Weapons fire (missiles included) requires an active sensor lock, and the only way to hide from active sensors is a cloaking device.

441
Other Games / Re: Aurora - The Dwarf Fortress of 4X Games
« on: September 26, 2011, 06:26:32 pm »
Which would basically be conventional industry.

I've always thought that idle workers should contribute a (small amount) of construction points. Maybe mining and refining as well.

442
Other Games / Re: Aurora - The Dwarf Fortress of 4X Games
« on: September 25, 2011, 02:37:23 pm »
Yeah, colony is just the game terminology for "something player owned on a planet". Drop off an automated mine? It's a colony. Leave a fuel stockpile there? It's a colony. Same for teams.

443
Other Games / Re: Aurora - The Dwarf Fortress of 4X Games
« on: September 23, 2011, 07:25:02 pm »
Quote from: Tarran on September 23, 2011, 07:08:14 pm
Yes, it appears so. I wonder why.

The Database password is still the same, though.

Edit: Oh.

Apparently he still reads this thread. Or something.

I... don't know what to think, really. I mean, I assume we're all reasonable people, who will check a non-modified version for the bug, and avoid reporting when a database or game is edited, right?

Seems like a major overreaction to me. It's not like it was handed out willy-nilly (I wanted it for an LP, of all things), and, well, used reasonably its very important to get the most out of the game. As an example, my case where a major game slowdown turned out to be due to an expended precursor minefield constantly detecting civilian shipping in a system I had eventually colonized. Without the designer password I would have had to abandon the campaign.

444
Other Games / Re: Aurora - The Dwarf Fortress of 4X Games
« on: September 23, 2011, 12:28:05 pm »
Quote from: forsaken1111 on September 23, 2011, 12:25:20 pm
Quote from: Bremen on September 23, 2011, 12:23:18 pm
Quote from: forsaken1111 on September 23, 2011, 11:46:47 am
Maintenance modules only add to the maintenance capacity of a population though. They're useful in some situations but they don't really meet the needs of maintaining a deep space presence away from your population centers.

Yeah, but my point is that it's a code limitation, and one the developer has stated he's working on removing. So eventually they might work in deep space.
Even if they work in deep space, they will require the constant supply of raw material. The point was to make it a renewable wealth cost to maintain the ship at readiness. Currently the material disappears into a black hole of unrecoverability and there is no recycling or reuse.

True, but I think minerals being a constant requirement is a big part of the game. In the long run nothing is completely sustainable.

Edit: To put it another way, maintenance on planets takes minerals, I don't see a reason why maintenance in space shouldn't. If it didn't, then I'd intentionally only use space based maintenance; wealth is a lot easier to obtain than minerals.

445
Other Games / Re: Aurora - The Dwarf Fortress of 4X Games
« on: September 23, 2011, 12:23:18 pm »
Quote from: forsaken1111 on September 23, 2011, 11:46:47 am
Maintenance modules only add to the maintenance capacity of a population though. They're useful in some situations but they don't really meet the needs of maintaining a deep space presence away from your population centers.

Yeah, but my point is that it's a code limitation, and one the developer has stated he's working on removing. So eventually they might work in deep space.

He's also mentioned the possibility of some sort of "Assembly bay" that could produce fighters/missiles based on a single design. IE, you design a sparrowhawk anti-missile, and get a component option for "Sparrowhawk Assembly Bay" component that slowly produces missiles. Could make for a nicely self sustaining space force.

446
Other Games / Re: Aurora - The Dwarf Fortress of 4X Games
« on: September 23, 2011, 11:36:21 am »
Quote from: forsaken1111 on September 23, 2011, 10:52:25 am
I'd love to see a sort of large-scale maintenance or overhaul module which can be added to larger ships that will completely eliminate the need for maintenance in it's taskgroup, instead costing wealth. Spin it as a well-equipped engineering facility built into large stations or ships which the other ships can use for spares and supplies. The wealth cost is the cost of operating the recycling and machining facilities as well as wages for personnel and replacement parts shipments. As it is, building large defense bases is a huge pain in the ass because they cannot be overhauled or maintained 'in place' unless you park them on a planetary population.

I'd also love the ability to mothball ships, stopping their maintenance clock but requiring a length (6 month?) reactivation period. While mothballed, they would cost wealth to maintain but suffer no failures and have no crew on board. They would be useless stationary targets if drawn into combat.

Well, we already have maintenance modules, and the developer has admitted that industry modules only working in planetary orbit is a limitation of the game. Last I heard he was working on changing that, so eventually it might be possible to send a maintenance fleet with modules and a cargo bay full of minerals off to maintain your defense bases.

447
Other Games / Re: Aurora - The Dwarf Fortress of 4X Games
« on: September 23, 2011, 12:06:31 am »
Neither low fuel warnings nor unrest from overpopulation cause turns to pause, though. They just put warnings in the log.

448
Other Games / Re: Aurora - The Dwarf Fortress of 4X Games
« on: September 20, 2011, 08:36:44 pm »
Quote from: Paul on September 20, 2011, 08:13:00 pm
Meson fighters can be good. They ignore shields and armor, so even one shot can cause damage to an enemy ship. Their range is short, but as you said so are the fire controls.

Also, assigning officers with a high movement initiative rating to all your fighters and upping their initiative in the task group window can get them to move after the enemy. From my experience an initiative over 200 lets you move after most enemies, which means fighters can close in minimum range and have better accuracy.

Fighters move after ships in turn order, so initiative only matters for order when fighters are engaging other fighters. The movement phase goes like this:

Quote from: Aurora wiki
    Fleets Move
    Fighter Groups Move
    Fighter Groups Reload (remaining rearm time is reduced)
    Monsters Move (including precursors)
    Missile Salvos move (including intercept, point blank point defence and damage allocation\planetary bombardment)
    Life pod Endurance Check (any lifepods that have exhausted their endurance are removed)
    Sensor Update (all sensors are checked for new contacts)

This is a huge advantage for fighters when facing NPRs, but makes them much less effective against any of the "special" enemies. I hadn't actually considered meson fighters, but you're right, they would probably gut an NPR fleet exceedingly well.

449
Other Games / Re: Aurora - The Dwarf Fortress of 4X Games
« on: September 20, 2011, 04:00:53 pm »
Quote from: Zebulon on September 20, 2011, 01:52:29 pm
Hmm. I've heard less than complimentary things about beam fighters in general; I just figured having mobile PD platforms might be a boon. I do like the idea of having dual-role fighters, though. It's worth a shot, at least; fighters are cheap, and if nothing else they're decoys I guess. Thanks for the thoughts guys.

I used them extensively in my no missiles game, and they're workable but micromanage-y. You definitely need large numbers to swamp a prepared enemy force and sand through enemy armor. In my experience, 100 fighters do a lot less damage than you would expect 100 guns to do.

The biggest problem with beam fighters honestly seemed to be the fire control range. Speed was easy, thanks to the 4x bonus, but having any kind of range makes for a bulky fire control. However, an interesting twist of turn order can help this; fighters always move after normal ships, but before precursors. This means against precursors they have to have range at least equal to the precursor speed x 5 seconds, and preferably longer (since the accuracy falls off quickly). Against NPRs you can reasonably expect fighters to close to 0 km and hold there, so fire control is less of an issue. Unfortunately, I have a lot of trouble finding challenging NPRs to fight in my games.

I ended up with basically three types of fighters. The first and simplest was a gauss armed fighter; since it needs no reactor and gauss can be minaturized, it's the smallest (and therefor fastest) you can make a beam fighter. Unfortunately, since it has essentially no range it's mostly useless against precursors, who are your most likely opponents early on. The second type was a laser armed fighter, using the reduced recharge rate to make a 2 HS laser and tiny reactor to make room for a longer range fire control. These were fun but expensive fighters, and the most effective against precursors, but don't inflict much damage with their low fire rate. The third design was a railgun fighter with slightly more range than the gauss fighter, and a lot of damage; unfortunately it was heavy and required improved armor and engine tech to even be practical.

I didn't get that far, but I suspect at a certain tech level gauss fighters come to the forefront again; unlike lasers and railguns it gets increased damage (fire rate) techs, and against NPRs a tiny, fast, short range fighter could be nasty.

450
Other Games / Re: Aurora - The Dwarf Fortress of 4X Games
« on: September 19, 2011, 09:32:51 pm »
Quote from: Zebulon on September 19, 2011, 06:38:30 pm
Maybe I'll feel differently when I get a larger fleet. As it stands, I've finally seen combat and the Precursors have been happy to dismantle (nearly) my entire fleet.  :P Had two engagements, one a jump point assault and second one in a system I thought was clear because I had the bug where you get control of the ships when I captured an outpost. Down to two carriers, a single fast destroyer (designed to outrange the enemy and then skirt back out of trouble - of course, their missiles had a longer range, especially after that drat ECM), and a strikegroup from my destroyed carrier who's now sitting on the opposite side of the point three jumps from Sol awaiting pickup.

Also, lesson learned, don't leave Sol without actual point defense. My actual escorts got torn up during the jump point assault (which I ultimately won by the narrowest of margins. Yay me!), so all I had was a very modest AMM suite aboard one carrier (which was also the active sensor for the group).

Has anybody here tried beam-armed (I'm thinking gauss) fighters for missile interception/point defense? I heard the idea somewhere and loved it, and looking through Steve's campaign, he has three generations of a gauss-armed fighter. I'm not sure if that means it's effective or if he's just tinkering with the idea. I've got Magneto-Plasma drives with the 25% extra power tech, so I'm probably looking at speeds in the 15,000 area.

A purely point defense fighter doesn't work that well; it almost certainly wont be able to keep up with missiles, and has tiny range, so the only dependable way to use it is to keep it with the fleet and set to final defensive fire. As far as I know this will work, but all it gains you are faster firecontrol (fighters get a 4x fire control speed bonus) and a faster weapon tracking speed (speed of the fighter); on the other hand you have to add all the systems for each fighter (engine, crew quarters, fuel, etc). Usually its cheaper and smaller to just use turrets.

On the other hand, attack fighters that double as point defense work just fine; not only can they defend their mothership, but the enemy is usually more than happy to shoot missiles at incoming fighters.

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