Installations

This article contains information relevant to both the C# and VB6 versions of Aurora. Where differences exist, they are noted in the appropriate sections.

Installations are structures which perform a variety of tasks on the colony they are on. Installations are built by industrial capacity, and they can be transported to a different planet with freighters. Most installations require sufficient resources and/or manpower to operate at peak performance.

Installation Types

Factories

Factories will give you a certain amount of build points(BP) on the colony you build them. Factory Production rates can be increased with research. If you intend to build something at your colony, make sure you have enough minerals and wealth.

• Conventional Industry - Pre Trans-Newtonian technology installation. Best upgraded to better installations as soon as possible. Conventional Industry acts as a mixture of other factory types, but at very low efficiency (every 1000 conventional industry can be replaced with 475 trans-Newtonian installations in C#, or 250 in VB6.)
• Construction Factory - Used to build every installation in Aurora, and can also build space stations. Requires 50,000 population per installation. Base rate is 10/year/factory, upgradeable via research.
• Forced Labour Construction Camp (C# only) - Produces installations at the same speed as normal Construction Factories and costs less, but permanently consumes a substantial amount of population, and creates unrest.
• Ordnance Factory - Used to produce missiles. Requires 50,000 population per installation. Base rate is 10/year/factory, upgradeable via research.
• Fighter Factory - Used to build fighters. Requires 50,000 population per installation. Base rate is 10/year/factory, upgradable via research.
• Fuel Refinery - Used to refine Sorium into fuel. Requires 50,000 population per installation. Base rate is 20,000 litres/year/refinery, upgradable via research. Refineries consume 1 ton of Sorium per 2000 litres refined. This conversion rate does not change with additional research.
• Ground Force Construction Complex (C#) / Ground Force Training Facility (VB6) - Used to train new ground forces. Requires 1,000,000 population per installation.

Research

• Research Facility(C#) / Research Lab (VB6) - Required to perform research. Requires 1 million population to operate. Base research rate is 200 RP/year/lab, upgradable via research, or by finding ruins.

Wealth

• Financial Centre - Increases the wealth created on the planet. Requires 50,000 population to operate.

Mining

• Mine - Manned mines. Require 50,000 population to operate. Base rate is 10/year/mine, upgradable via research. Note: lower than 1.0 accessibility affects the base rate as a percentage, i.e. .6 accessibility mines at 6/year/mine.
• Forced Labour Mining Camp (C# only) - Produces minerals identically to a mine and costs less, but permanently consumes a substantial amount of population, and creates unrest.
• Automated Mine - Produces minerals identically to a mine, except twice as expensive (240 vs 120), and requires no population to operate. Regular mines can also be converted to automated mines at a cost of 150.
• Mass Driver - Used to launch and catch packets of minerals. Each driver can launch 5000 tons of minerals per year to any other colony in the same system, without needing to ship the minerals in a freighter. In C#, the target colony needs to have its own Mass Driver to be a valid target. In VB6, any colony may be targeted, and if that colony doesn't have a Mass Driver of its own, then the packets will act like an orbital bombardment when they arrive, instead of transferring minerals.

Ship Production and Maintenance

• Maintenance Facility - Used to provide support to orbiting military starships; civilian ships do not need maintenance. Requires 50,000 population per installation. In C#, they support 1000 tons of ships each (upgradeable with research). In VB6, they supports all ships that have a mass of less than 200 tons times the number of facilities. Consumes minerals to support military ships proportional to their build cost. See Ship Maintenance. They also produce the MSP that are needed to maintain ships that are away from base.
• Naval Shipyard Complex - Used to build military vessels. Base capacity 1,000 tons. Each shipyard has a number of slips and can build 1 ship per slip. The shipyard is also only configured to build 1 class of ships (though in some cases very similar versions of ships may be built without retooling). Population requirements are 250 per slipway per ton (C#) or 1,000,000 population per slipway plus 100 per slipway per ton (VB6). Base building rate is 400 pts/year. This is upgradeable via research. Naval shipyards can also build commercial vessels if desired, but this is usually impractical.
• Commercial Shipyard Complex - Identical to the naval shipyard complex, except that capacity is 10x larger for the same cost and workforce, and it cannot build military vessels.
• Repair Yard - Used to repair damaged ships. These have the same size and worker need as commercial shipyards, but can work on military ships. However, they cannot construct new ships, they can only repair damage.

Leadership Facilities

• Sector Command - Allows creation of a sector. A sector governor oversees a number of systems. A fraction (1/4) of his bonuses are applied to each colony under his jurisdiction. The command radius starts at 1 for one Sector Command, and increases by 1 every time you double the number of facilities (so radius 2 requires 2 facilities, radius 3 required 4, radius 4 requires 8, etc.) These can only be built with the Improved Command And Control technology.
• Naval Headquarters (C# only) - Allows creation of Naval Admin Commands. These function the same way as sector commands, and have the same base radius.
• Military Academy - Generates leaders to command your fleets, ground forces, lead research projects, and govern colonies. They also train ship crews.

Managing Inhospitable Worlds

• Infrastructure - Infrastructure is used by colonies to support population on bodies with low suitability. Infrastructure is only usable on worlds with at least 0.1g of gravity.
• Low-Gravity Infrastructure (C#) / Underground Infrastructure (VB6) - The same as infrastructure, except it can be used on low-gravity worlds as well, but it is also more expensive.
• Terraforming Installation - Used to modify the atmosphere to a more hospitable type. Requires 250,000 population to operate. Base rate is .001 atm/year/installation, upgradeable via research. It has a mass of 125,000 tons, 5 times as much as a normal industrial installation. See Terraforming.
• Genetic Modification Centre - Needs Biology/Genetics research. Modifies base race into engineered race at the rate of 250,000 per year per centre. New race is subject to riots if it is considered a minority, and an engineered race cannot be engineered again.

Logistics

• Spaceport - Allows all loading/unloading operations to complete faster including minerals, installations and troops. Loading time is divided by the level of the spaceport plus one. In C#, they also allow colonies to transfer fuel and missiles to and from ships.
• Cargo Shuttle Station (C# only) - Similar to a spaceport, but only reduces cargo loading/unloading times.
• Ordnance Transfer Station (C# only) - Similar to a spaceport, but only allows missile transfer.
• Refuelling Station (C# only) - Similar to a spaceport, but only allows fuel transfer.

Sensors

• Deep Space Tracking Station - Passive thermal and EM sensors. The ground system for sensing approaching fleets. Each station has a base rating of 200. This is upgradeable via research.

Construction

Each item that is constructed requires a build cost equal to the mineral cost. For example, a Shipyard complex requires 1200 Duranium and 1200 Neutronium, for a total cost of 2400. One construction factory will require 240 years at the base rate to complete the yard. Of course, multiple factories will reduce this time - 240 factories will only take one year for the same shipyard.

Transporting Installations

Once constructed, installations can be transported to other colonies. Transporting most installations is possible either by using Civilian shipping contracts or using your own freighters. Shipyards are an exception, as they may only be moved by towing them with a tug.

Most facilities weighs 25,000 tons (one normal Cargo Hold), but some are larger, and infrastructure are smaller. If a ship tries to transport a facility but cannot carry it all at once, the facility is automatically broken down into fractional facilities, allowing you to transport it in several runs or by using several ships. Note that fractional facilities produce nothing - they must be moved in full before they have any benefit on the destination world.

In VB6, some installations are immobile. In C#, all installations can be moved.

Conventional Empire Start

If you start a conventional empire, many installation types will require you to research Trans-Newtonian technology, and you will only have basic installations available. In particular, no additional factories can be built until you research the Trans-Newtonian Technology tech.

After you research this technology, you can start to convert your Conventional Industry into your choice of Construction Factories, Mines, Fighter Factories, Fuel Refineries, Ordnance Factories, or (in C# only) Financial Centres.