C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions

[Whitecold]

It is not the shrinking warhead size that leads to the big improvement in AMM performance. Shipkillers don't need much agility usually, but it increases counter missile performance a lot. By flattening out the AGI tech curve you can decrease performance without introducing any new concepts.

[Father Tim]

Fixing the AMM imbalance might be acheived by removing Missile Agility entirely.  The increasing engine power at higher tech levels should keep missile hit chances versus ships reasonable, but missile v missile numbers would drop considerably.  It also has the added benefit of no longer needing an Excel sheet or Python program to calculate (efficient) new missile designs.

[Steve Walmsley]

Fixing the AMM imbalance might be acheived by removing Missile Agility entirely.  The increasing engine power at higher tech levels should keep missile hit chances versus ships reasonable, but missile v missile numbers would drop considerably.  It also has the added benefit of no longer needing an Excel sheet or Python program to calculate (efficient) new missile designs.

Yes, I think might be the simplest answer, plus probably making engine boost modifiers cheaper or maybe even free to improve low-level AMMs.

[Whitecold]

Fixing the AMM imbalance might be acheived by removing Missile Agility entirely.  The increasing engine power at higher tech levels should keep missile hit chances versus ships reasonable, but missile v missile numbers would drop considerably.  It also has the added benefit of no longer needing an Excel sheet or Python program to calculate (efficient) new missile designs.

Yes, I think might be the simplest answer, plus probably making engine boost modifiers cheaper or maybe even free to improve low-level AMMs.

Removing it might be too drastic. It also no longer gives any options to build anti-fighter/anti-FAC missiles.

[Iceranger]

Fixing the AMM imbalance might be acheived by removing Missile Agility entirely.  The increasing engine power at higher tech levels should keep missile hit chances versus ships reasonable, but missile v missile numbers would drop considerably.  It also has the added benefit of no longer needing an Excel sheet or Python program to calculate (efficient) new missile designs.

Yes, I think might be the simplest answer, plus probably making engine boost modifiers cheaper or maybe even free to improve low-level AMMs.

Based on my napkin math, we should be careful about changing the AGI values.

TLDR: giving agility tech a higher starting value and a lower growth speed might be enough nerf for high tech missiles.

I experimented with some adjusted AGI tech levels. It seems to me increasing the starting value, and slow the growth down looks reasonable (at least for AMM, where warhead keeps shrinking with tech levels).


They also only holds for the situation where warhead strength is kept constant (so warhead size keeps shrinking). For other types of missiles, I expect their tracking capabilities does not grow as significantly as AMMs. For example, this table shows if the warhead is kept 0.2MSP (20% of the total missile size), the growth of the tracking with the same new AGI tech values as above. It might be good enough for a light anti-ship missile, but probably not good enough for anti fighter/FAC roles.


Below is a chart comparing different scenarios. I included some rule of thumb ship speed (slow = EP/HS rating x 250, fast = EP/HS rating x 500, fighter = EP/HS x 1000) for comparison.

Note that with adjusted AGI values, S1 missiles with 0.25MSP ECCM and 0.2MSP warhead can barely track the fighter speed of equivalent tech. Given this is the theoretical max value, S1 might not be a good missile size for anti-fighter role any more.

Zoomed in to lower tech levels:


Giving engine boost tech to missiles at lower tech levels will definitely bring their performance on par with beam weapons.

Keep in mind that the numbers shown above are theoretical max values, meaning 0 fuel, max engine boost, and maximizing tracking speed by adjusting engine/AGI ratio. Thus in both VB6 and C#, the practical values will decrease (except for rounding errors on very short ranged missiles). The decrease will be more significant in C# due to max boosted engines consume more fuel. In fact, based on the ship/missile optimizer I created based on C# formulas, max boosted engines are not the optimal choice for even very short ranged missiles. Thus in C# the practical performance will definitely be lower than these values.

[Steve Walmsley]

There are other factors as well. You have to build and distribute the AMMs, which is a major factor in campaigns and a downside to AMMs. On the other hand, they can engage at much longer ranges than beam weapons, so you have multiple AMMs attempts vs usually a single beam attempt, although that itself is affected by technology and design decisions re sensors, so you can't make single shot comparisons. On that basis, giving low tech AMMs extra capability beyond possibly cheaper (in research terms) engine boosts is not necessarily a good idea.

Also, with the changes in active and passive detection of fighters, reducing the ability to kill fighters with cheap missiles is probably fine.

In this situation, there are just so many competing factors, that you can't really calculate what is going to happen. You can make an educated guess (as per my gut feel that reducing or eliminating agility is probably the way to go), but it is usually easier to test and see what happens.

[Whitecold]

I'm not sure how the sensor changes hurt fighters, since the small low-res fighter sensors now are much closer in range to the large high-res sensors on a large ship.
And against missile fighters, beams on large ships are not an option. I for one would like to keep the possibility of specializing the missile against fighters instead of having one capital standard missile that is getting chucked at everything that is not a missile.

[Iceranger]

There are other factors as well. You have to build and distribute the AMMs, which is a major factor in campaigns and a downside to AMMs. On the other hand, they can engage at much longer ranges than beam weapons, so you have multiple AMMs attempts vs usually a single beam attempt, although that itself is affected by technology and design decisions re sensors, so you can't make single shot comparisons. On that basis, giving low tech AMMs extra capability beyond possibly cheaper (in research terms) engine boosts is not necessarily a good idea.

Also, with the changes in active and passive detection of fighters, reducing the ability to kill fighters with cheap missiles is probably fine.

In this situation, there are just so many competing factors, that you can't really calculate what is going to happen. You can make an educated guess (as per my gut feel that reducing or eliminating agility is probably the way to go), but it is usually easier to test and see what happens.

Steve, as a side request, is it possible for you to share a few missile design screens from C#? Any missile would be fine, preferably with different design parameters so I can check if my missile calculator is correct/accurate.

[Steve Walmsley]

I'm not sure how the sensor changes hurt fighters, since the small low-res fighter sensors now are much closer in range to the large high-res sensors on a large ship.
And against missile fighters, beams on large ships are not an option. I for one would like to keep the possibility of specializing the missile against fighters instead of having one capital standard missile that is getting chucked at everything that is not a missile.

You could still have a fast missile with a small warhead vs fighters compared to slower with larger warhead vs ships (or maybe a two-stage missile with a very fast second stage). Lowering or removing agility wouldn't remove the ability to use different strategies against fighters.

[Steve Walmsley]

There are other factors as well. You have to build and distribute the AMMs, which is a major factor in campaigns and a downside to AMMs. On the other hand, they can engage at much longer ranges than beam weapons, so you have multiple AMMs attempts vs usually a single beam attempt, although that itself is affected by technology and design decisions re sensors, so you can't make single shot comparisons. On that basis, giving low tech AMMs extra capability beyond possibly cheaper (in research terms) engine boosts is not necessarily a good idea.

Also, with the changes in active and passive detection of fighters, reducing the ability to kill fighters with cheap missiles is probably fine.

In this situation, there are just so many competing factors, that you can't really calculate what is going to happen. You can make an educated guess (as per my gut feel that reducing or eliminating agility is probably the way to go), but it is usually easier to test and see what happens.

Steve, as a side request, is it possible for you to share a few missile design screens from C#? Any missile would be fine, preferably with different design parameters so I can check if my missile calculator is correct/accurate.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg102804#msg102804

I highly recommend reading through the changes thread as it contains a lot of information about C#, including several different missile-related posts.

[Iceranger]

There are other factors as well. You have to build and distribute the AMMs, which is a major factor in campaigns and a downside to AMMs. On the other hand, they can engage at much longer ranges than beam weapons, so you have multiple AMMs attempts vs usually a single beam attempt, although that itself is affected by technology and design decisions re sensors, so you can't make single shot comparisons. On that basis, giving low tech AMMs extra capability beyond possibly cheaper (in research terms) engine boosts is not necessarily a good idea.

Also, with the changes in active and passive detection of fighters, reducing the ability to kill fighters with cheap missiles is probably fine.

In this situation, there are just so many competing factors, that you can't really calculate what is going to happen. You can make an educated guess (as per my gut feel that reducing or eliminating agility is probably the way to go), but it is usually easier to test and see what happens.

Steve, as a side request, is it possible for you to share a few missile design screens from C#? Any missile would be fine, preferably with different design parameters so I can check if my missile calculator is correct/accurate.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg102804#msg102804

I highly recommend reading through the changes thread as it contains a lot of information about C#, including several different missile-related posts.

I have been lurking on the forum without an account for a few years, and have been following the change log closely

The missile calculator I was talking about had been verified based on the 2 engine parameters in the change log. If possible, I would like to verify the whole missile parameters (speed/range/accuracy and so on), so I can make sure my understanding/interpretation of the changes is correct.

[Steve Walmsley]

The missile calculator I was talking about had been verified based on the 2 engine parameters in the change log. If possible, I would like to verify the whole missile parameters (speed/range/accuracy and so on), so I can make sure my understanding/interpretation of the changes is correct.

I am about to start my 3rd test campaign, this time with a human TN race, 2 NPRs and Precursors and Swarm active. I'll post the screenshots as I progress.

[Jovus]

I'm not sure how the sensor changes hurt fighters, since the small low-res fighter sensors now are much closer in range to the large high-res sensors on a large ship.

That's exactly how. Since the gains in range from high resolution are considerably smaller with the new sensor model compared to the old, you are very much encouraged to just build a big low-res sensor to detect both small craft and large, rather than specializing your sensor resolutions and potentially allowing fighters to get much closer because your low-res sensor is secondary.

However, this is primarily an academic consideration, since I doubt NPRs are going to design that way.

[Steve Walmsley]

I'm not sure how the sensor changes hurt fighters, since the small low-res fighter sensors now are much closer in range to the large high-res sensors on a large ship.

For active sensors, you can detect fighters at a greater distance with a resolution 5 sensor than you could before for sensors sizes less than 8 HS. The advantages are much larger for small sensors, so now it is worth having fighter-detection on much smaller ships, including small picket ships that the fighters may not even detect on approach because their own sensors need to be high resolution to try to maintain distance.

Equally, passive sensors are MUCH more effective against small thermal contacts, and the increase is huge for small passive sensors, which makes it easier to detect fighters on passive.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg102701#msg102701
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg103085#msg103085

[Lucifer, the Morning Star]

Hey Steve, coming w/ another bug. I love the Fleet Organization screen, but it has a tendency to just disappear whole Task Forces. I've had 28 ships and 300 fighters all vanish from me trying to organize ships. I've found it to happen most often when working with carriers/nested ships. Most commonly when organizing fighters inside of a carrier into different groups while a carrier is in another group. Is it possible to get that fixed?