Author Topic: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion  (Read 135733 times)

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Offline Prince of Space

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #45 on: January 11, 2016, 10:08:29 PM »
Also would maintenance modules (on ships/stations) be able to construct MSP in deep space if they had the required minerals in a cargo bay at the same location (same TG) without being over a colony (orders/setting to start/stop would/could be in the ship window under the misc/cargo tab. Or a new tab in the TG window labled "Industrial" or something similar), or would you only be able to haul supplies from a colony?

The release notes state that only system body based maintenance facilities will produce MSP. That suggests to me that deep space MSP manufacturing will be off the table.
 

Offline ardem

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #46 on: January 11, 2016, 11:17:14 PM »
Shields also should be classified as commercial not military. That way the armour you have lost atleast it has some protection, from an aggressor else these habitats could be destroyed, single laser gun. Also many time i wanted to atleast have some of my commercial vessels have shields instead of armour to suit the rest of my fleet.
 

Offline 83athom

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #47 on: January 12, 2016, 09:18:33 AM »
Shields also should be classified as commercial not military. That way the armour you have lost atleast it has some protection, from an aggressor else these habitats could be destroyed, single laser gun. Also many time i wanted to atleast have some of my commercial vessels have shields instead of armour to suit the rest of my fleet.
Shield are an inherent military technology because of the power requirements, complications of creating and maintaining, and inefficiencies in its use. And there is also the point that the "structural shell" is supposed to have drawbacks if you want to use it, if shields are made commercial then there is a lot of room for abuse in such you wouldn't have to defend your commercial stations because you could just make them have tens of thousands to millions of shield points with the room from removing the armor (no joke, that is entirely possible). However, there is nothing to say that there couldn't be a civilian version that is larger and provides less shielding per piece at an equivalent military tech. Say it is 10 times larger, recharges 2-5 times slower, and only provides the protection of 1/2 the military version. Since that could still be exploitable, maybe you could make it so speed is 1/2 normal, you can't load/unload cargo/citizens, harvest fuel, or construct gates while the commercial shields are active.
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Offline Mor

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #48 on: January 12, 2016, 09:29:35 AM »
Concerning the new alien ruins chance setting. When does it take effect, during system generation (iirc after we go through a jump point) or a random chance during geo survey of terrestrial planet\moon?
 

Offline Haji

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #49 on: January 12, 2016, 11:24:09 AM »
Shields also should be classified as commercial not military. That way the armour you have lost atleast it has some protection, from an aggressor else these habitats could be destroyed, single laser gun. Also many time i wanted to atleast have some of my commercial vessels have shields instead of armour to suit the rest of my fleet.

The structural shell comes from a discussion about the habitats that went on for some time in another topic. Long story short the habitats were too expensive and not economically viable and during the analysis of the problem Steve concluded that's mostly due to armor. The only reason structural shell exists at all is so that the cost of the habitats can be brought down. It's utility for other constructs, like fuel harvesting bases, is just an unintended consequence.
And this is where the protection issue comes in. Civilian designs are not supposed to be defensible by themselves, they are supposed to be protected by naval units. That's why even now you can destroy any commercial design with a single laser, it will just take you a little longer if you armor your designs. In addition, as mentioned by 83athom, it's difficult for me to see any real shield as a commercial design, much the same way it's difficult for me to see how you could have commercial ECM. Heck, I'm even against CIWS being commercial components, despite them having no offensive power whatsoever. And to be honest it's difficult for me to imagine any reason to put shields on a commercial vessel other than RP purposes. Fuel harvesters, cargo ships, colony ships, orbital habitats and the like are supposed to be behind the lines and protected by naval forces. Adding armor/shields will only make the enemy waste more time/ammunition destroying them, but will not change their fate if they find themselves targeted (note that as far as I know NPR will always go for military ships first). The only ship that could potentially benefit from shields is a commercial grade fleet tanker you want to keep with your warships to extend their range, but you can just pile armor on it and you'll be fine. Or just make it a military ship with defenses added.
Overall I see very little practical reason to make shields a commercial component and as 83athom pointed out, there's a lot of reasons not to do so as they may the break game balance (such as it is). If you're looking for an example of that, orbital habitats can be built in factories. Why is this important? Because anything that has this component can be build in factories, even if it's a massive terraforming ship with engines, tonnes of armor, weak sensors and CIWSs. Considering the ingenuity of many of the players, I don't even want to know what they would build with civilian grade shields, especially against NPR opponents, whose AI is rather limited.
 

Offline Vandermeer

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #50 on: January 12, 2016, 02:09:09 PM »
Kind of wondering about some things. Would a section marked as the "no armor" (structural shell) still be able to do their task when they are being tractored? I was planning on having sectionalized commercial ships using this new change, with a  module with nothing but cargo/cryo/harvesters/etc with a 0.1 deployment time and then an armored "drive" section with all the crew, engines, fuel, and whatnot. So would they be able to load cargo/people or harvest fuel while tractored or would they need to detach every time? I know for the harvester I could just tug out and leave but :P.
I had a couple of games where my standard freighters, tankers and fuel harvesters were exactly that: Module ships.(did that to minor extend in the swarm game too) Essentially just a 75% engine ship with a tractor that would pick up an identical sized mission module (tank, cargo, passenger, harvest or salvage), and it worked perfectly already in 6.4.
I like this, because it enables you to respond to the current needs without having to have expensive engines sitting around doing nothing for years with specialized ships. - The engines are always flying, only the mission module may stay back.

Disadvantage though is that you get difficulty using these freighters in a fight, should that ever be an issue (like tanking over AMM spam bases with your 1.3+mt superfreighter), because every hit will detach the module, and you essentially only have half of the amazing armor advantage of large ships.
It also requires around somewhere less than 2 times as many officers, so small ship civil navies would run into further complication.
playing Aurora as swarm fleet: Zen Nomadic Hive Fantasy
 

Offline Indefatigable

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #51 on: January 27, 2016, 01:03:01 PM »
For purposes of starting a new "grand campaign", is the release of 7. 2 some days or weeks away?
 

Offline 83athom

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #52 on: January 27, 2016, 01:07:00 PM »
Keep in mind there are some pretty significant changes in v7.2, so Steve needs to properly test them for balance/bugs before he is to release it. However, I would say Soon(tm). Keep in mind that the last time I said that, the new version was released the very next day.
Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.
 

Offline swarm_sadist

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #53 on: January 27, 2016, 04:00:28 PM »
...In addition, as mentioned by 83athom, it's difficult for me to see any real shield as a commercial design, much the same way it's difficult for me to see how you could have commercial ECM. Heck, I'm even against CIWS being commercial components, despite them having no offensive power whatsoever. And to be honest it's difficult for me to imagine any reason to put shields on a commercial vessel other than RP purposes.
Israel already has ECM and CIWS on their civilian airliners. Most other airliners simply don't bother due to weight and economical considerations.

From Wikipedia:
El Al planes have been fitted with anti-missile counter-measures since the early 2000s, with the initial system known as Flight Guard. El Al has been the only commercial airliner to fit its planes with systems to defend against anti-aircraft missiles.

In 2014, El Al began to fit some of its planes that fly on more sensitive routes with an updated system missile defense system that employs an infrared missile-tracking camera, an “infrared (IR), ultra-violet (UV), or radar missile-approach warning (MAWS) sensor to detect a missile launch in the very early stages of an attack” and a laser system to act as a counter-measure.


Also, WW2 convoys would sometimes tow acoustic decoys to distract the new German acoustic torpedoes being used. Just because it isn't done in modern RL doesn't mean it wouldn't be done during a war.

I am all for arming my civilian shipping. During both world wars freighters were sometimes armed with machine guns, mortars, auto-cannons and sometimes even spare 5" cannons. Adding one 10cm laser should not cause the entire ship to start having maintenance failures just because it's 'military'.

As a footnote, a million shield point shield would use a LOT of fuel.
 

Offline sloanjh

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #54 on: January 28, 2016, 06:47:26 AM »
Israel already has ECM and CIWS on their civilian airliners. Most other airliners simply don't bother due to weight and economical considerations.

From Wikipedia:
In 2014, El Al began to fit some of its planes that fly on more sensitive routes with an updated system missile defense system that employs an infrared missile-tracking camera, an “infrared (IR), ultra-violet (UV), or radar missile-approach warning (MAWS) sensor to detect a missile launch in the very early stages of an attack” and a laser system to act as a counter-measure.[/i]

Minor quibble: I strongly suspect that the laser system is an IR laser designed to "blind" IR seekers (as opposed to a point-defense laser designed to destroy the missile itself).  I would classify this more as "advanced ECM" than as "CIWS".  Ditto for acoustic decoys.  As far as I know, DoD is still researching/evaluating laser point-defense systems and they're not yet deployed in a system that would be mounted on a commercial airliner.

That being said, I suspect Steve's reasoning is that it shouldn't be too hard to slap an R2D2 (Phalanx) or 4 onto a commercial ship during wartime.  At present [pause while googling] I strongly suspect that there aren't any mounted on civilian ships, although Wikipedia says "The Navy began placing CIWS systems on non-combatant vessels in 1984".  (Note that the same Wikipedia article says that a British Sea Dart shot down a Silkworm during Gulf War I, which I wasn't aware of.)

John
« Last Edit: January 28, 2016, 06:49:42 AM by sloanjh »
 

Offline MarcAFK

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #55 on: January 28, 2016, 07:42:14 AM »
The LAWS system is currently deployed in the Persian gulf, primarily for shooting down drones. But I believe a more powerful anti missile version is supposed to be deployed in number this year.
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Offline 83athom

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #56 on: January 28, 2016, 09:34:05 AM »
The LAWS system is currently deployed in the Persian gulf, primarily for shooting down drones. But I believe a more powerful anti missile version is supposed to be deployed in number this year.
I was going to mention that earlier, but he said "they're not yet deployed in a system that would be mounted on a commercial airliner" so I just canceled it. But not only are they able to shoot down drones, but munitions on enemy vessels as well. They tested it by remote controlling a dingy with a rocket launcher strapped on it, destroying the rocket warhead in the launcher.
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Offline bean

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #57 on: January 28, 2016, 10:04:37 AM »
I don't know of any CIWS systems installed on other than naval vessels, but there have been studies of doing so.  They have very little impact on operations, as they basically get bolted down and have power and chilled water lines run to them.  That's it, along with a mode switch.  I do know that some ships which Aurora would classify as civilian are definitely fitted for CIWS, if not with it now.  (They're MSC, and currently unarmed, but have the mounting locations fitted and might receive the units in wartime.)
Also, Steve, I had decided not to update my big game to V7, until I saw this stuff.  Why do you always do this to me?
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Offline swarm_sadist

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #58 on: January 28, 2016, 10:36:32 AM »
Minor quibble: I strongly suspect that the laser system is an IR laser designed to "blind" IR seekers (as opposed to a point-defense laser designed to destroy the missile itself).  I would classify this more as "advanced ECM" than as "CIWS".  Ditto for acoustic decoys.  As far as I know, DoD is still researching/evaluating laser point-defense systems and they're not yet deployed in a system that would be mounted on a commercial airliner.
A "blinder" is a soft-kill system. It would burn out the delicate sensor on the front of the missile, which would be just as effective as blowing the missile up.

Quote
That being said, I suspect Steve's reasoning is that it shouldn't be too hard to slap an R2D2 (Phalanx) or 4 onto a commercial ship during wartime.  At present [pause while googling] I strongly suspect that there aren't any mounted on civilian ships, although Wikipedia says "The Navy began placing CIWS systems on non-combatant vessels in 1984".  (Note that the same Wikipedia article says that a British Sea Dart shot down a Silkworm during Gulf War I, which I wasn't aware of.)
Rheinmetall Oerlikon Millennium Gun. A simple to mount design that is not embedded into the hull and requires no external power to fire (although it does need external power to reload). In the modern navy there is no need to have weapons aboard a commercial ship, which is why you won't find modern container ships with weapons. It's actually against international law if I'm not mistaken.
 

Offline MarcAFK

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #59 on: January 28, 2016, 11:34:38 AM »
It was technically against various international agreements to mount weapons to certain vessels I. WWII but that stopped nobody. 
They assumed that as long as they popped out a military flag before opening fire with the hidden guns it was fine, but that's not really how the law works.
What's really interesting is that the controversy at the time was actually based on how commercial vessels were protected from being fired at under international law, however as most countries integrated such ships into it's intelligence system, ie such ships would watch out for and radio the position of enemy vessels, so it was argued that they weren't protected as non belligerents and could be fired at by submarine[1]. In practice though where possible crews were usually given warning so they could evacuate, except in cases where a convoy was too well protected so only a stealthy torpedo could be used to destroy the vessel.

Reference:
[1] http://www.lawbookexchange.com/pages/books/42170/robert-w-tucker/the-law-of-war-and-neutrality-at-sea
« Last Edit: January 28, 2016, 11:41:03 AM by MarcAFK »
" Why is this godforsaken hellhole worth dying for? "
". . .  We know nothing about them, their language, their history or what they look like.  But we can assume this.  They stand for everything we don't stand for.  Also they told me you guys look like dorks. "
"Stop exploding, you cowards.  "