Perhaps eventually it would be worth considering making boarding actions more difficult against a species with a different breathing type.
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Why? Already going to be suited due to risk of vacuum exposure.
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Definitely a reasonable view. Why I think it could add playing variety. As for meaningful choices which is a measuring stick for suggestions I am uncertain how effective it would be at adding those.
As for theory species from different atmospheres would likely have other design/structural difference environmental differences reflected in their ships layout. Lasers and other boarding weapons might function better in particular atmospheres and temperature ranges.
As my boarding parties depressurise the ship as they advance in the unlikely event the defenders were stupid enough not to depresurise their ship before combat it makes little difference what the atmoshphere was. And as they are in Power armour which does not need modifying to fight on any world that atmosphere would not matter anyway. Atmospher difference lies on the line of requiring me to have teach to modify all my ground troops weapons before deploying them anywhere other than myhomeword, as that would be necessary all you would be adding is micromanagment and possibly a cost
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Sorry LordPC but I have to agree with Pedroig and Andrew_Moreton here, it makes very little sense for boarding actions against species with different breathing gas to be more difficult. All the boarders will be wearing powered armour, fully suited up, and it is very likely that the portions of the ship, if not the entire ship, is exposed to vacuum. Though that is something that Aurora does not (yet) actively model.
Boarding is already quite challenging and a supplementary tactic, not something that you can primarily rely on, so making it more difficult, especially via something that does not seem that reasonable on the surface at least, is probably a bad idea.
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Hello,
I must admit that I’m really happy with this update, which I’ve been waiting for a very long time. Bringing an ecological dimension to Aurora that could lead to more pernicious conflicts will, in my opinion, significantly improve the immersion of the game. I thank Steve for all his efforts for an amateur game that, in my opinion, far surpasses many other games in the field without having the same means. Thanks again.
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For the sake of consistency and so the quality of story generated. The same your question would kill terrain bonuses too, at least for powered infantry.
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LordPC is right, the most invariant thing is specific environment reflexes and skills. The bigger distance in physiology the more probability an attacking trooper makes a mistake. The cost of mistakes in combat is blood and death.
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Just to make boarding combat more interesting, because currently it’s a bit too easy and predictable.
Boarding combat is only predictable in that it is carried out agianst cripples or slow mechant ships as against anything else all the boarding troops die before getting onboard. Then it is predictable as you should have enough troops to overcome the crew. If you want to make boarding more complcicated (difficult) isntead of sillu edge case rules for alein environments which make no sense from my perspective and the stories I tell. Then suggest changes for boarding ideas which I don’t particulary care about but are obvious are
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all NPR ships carry boarding team per 10000 tons of hull (or similar)
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all military ships include a small number of marines (1 in 100 crew or similar)
Both are simpler, make more sense and do not force a viewpoint on other players
It’s hard for me to accept as obvious the idea all spacefaring races are similar in thinking boarding teams are necessary or even useful (some may just have natural inclination). I think it also won’t make boardind significantly less predictable.
This suggestion is not significant for me, actually. Just disagree with the counterarguments provided.
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Just think of it as every npr meeting a boarding raider black swan, at one point or another.
Since the non-oxygen species will be interested in very different worlds for colonization, could that allow diplomatic sharing of a system? Both empires would be interested in the same minerals and jump point control so I don’t see it as a full sharing but more of a “we would like to request permission to colonize that particular rock” request to a friendly or allied empire, along with commercial/civilian transit rights for the system.
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I would love to seem more nuance to the diplomacy system that permits intentional sharing of systems (vs just being in the same system because neither side claimed it) when the resources desired are not overlapping.
Unfortunately I suspect it’s really, really hard to code the AI to make use of the system in a way that feels reasonable/organic and without leaving it wide open for abuse by the player. Although we can always lean on the “if you don’t think players should abuse it, then don’t abuse it yourself, since you’re the only player in this single person game” approach, which is fair. While I enjoy the “game” of using the diplomatic system in a game to my own advantage, that’s like a mini-game within the game, and it’s fine if that’s not a mini-game Aurora offers. It would just be nice to have more things we can DO with the diplomacy system at a more granular level.
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I would settle for a simple treaty system that lets us clearly demarcate borders that the AI will either respect or deliberately ignore as a provocation:
- Mine
- Yours
- Ours (shared)
- Nobody’s (unoccupied/neutral zone)
Right now there’s nothing deliberate about it, as far as I can tell as a player. If a system is within X jumps from a populated colony, the AI thinks it belongs to them, and that seems to be about as much as it does. I realize there are rules under the hood, but as a player the system is so opaque that I would believe you if you told me otherwise.
Ideally this would be a basis for a limited negotiation system to end wars short of total destruction or hiding out and waiting for the hostility meter to tick down.
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Slightly necro-ing this thread, but for those who were discussing orbital mirrors…
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/10/climate/fcc-space-mirror.html