Drop Pod Transports

[Droll (OP)]

Didn't want to post bug report since im on 1.6.3 but Drop Pod equipped troop transport bays are commercial - I understand why the normal bays are commercial but it feels a bit weird if the drop pod ones are also commercial.

Shouldn't they be military components?

[Desdinova]

They're intentionally commercial because they'd require huge military shipyards

[xenoscepter]

I'm pretty sure that's WAI. Commercial, as I understand it, isn't the same as "Civilian". The civilians use it, but so too does the military.

Keep in mind, to have a Drop Ship be commercial, it must have at least 3 months deployment, use only Commercial Engines (big, slow, can't use Military Jump Drives), only commercial damage control (twice as big, but rated the same), only commercial hangars (bigger, needs maintenance modules for fighters / military ships, doesn't reduce deployment clocks for military ships), can't have any weapons other than CIWS, and can't mount any sensors bigger than 1 HS (50 Tons).

So, yeah... that's a lot of restrictions. Even if it's a bug, I'd be in favor of keeping it that way anyway. Such dropships would be in effect a highly-specialized design.

[Droll (OP)]

They're intentionally commercial because they'd require huge military shipyards

I get it now - Most of the time when landing a ground force its in the 10ks of tons range and I imagine most like to keep ship count low. I use convoys of 30-34 drop ship transports to move 500k tons of force around usually as thats the average size of a division for me.

[Energyz]

use only Commercial Engines (big, slow, can't use Military Jump Drives)

Pretty sure it can use military jump drives.

[xenoscepter]

Negative, Jump Drive is tied to engine type.

[Energyz]

Negative, Jump Drive is tied to engine type.

At least in 1.5.3, I've made a Commercial tanker with a military jump engine (so I can use it as a jump ship for my military fleet) Works just fine

[xenoscepter]

That's a bug then.

[Energyz]

No, you're just mistaken.

From the VB6 wiki :

Military jump engines are smaller in size and suffer no penalty to max jump squadron size, with more efficient use of size. Civilian jump engines make less efficient use of size and significantly larger overall, but can jump larger ships than military version (10x higher Max Ship Size than military). Civilian drives are less costly, but their max jump squadron size is penalized by one.

Additionally a ship whose non-jump engines are flagged as military cannot transit a jump point using a wormhole generated by a commercial jump drive. Military engines create instabilities in the wormhole stabilization field generated by a commercial jump drive and collapse it. On the other hand, commercial-engined ships can transit a wormhole opened by a military jump drive, but this scenario is pretty rare. Military jump drives tend to only support smaller ships, and ships with commercial engines tend to be larger than the capabilities of the military jump drive.

http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=Jump_drive

[xenoscepter]

No, I'm not mistaken, because in C# that was changed. And it was reported as a bug, confirmed as a bug and has been squashed since 1.5.3

You're just on an older version, which is fine, but unfortunately I'm not wrong. So my statement on the transports still stands.

[Energyz]

That's a shame then, we have to make tankers and ordonance ships with military engines now?

[smoelf]

That's a shame then, we have to make tankers and ordonance ships with military engines now?

Yoy don't have to - just remember to bring a ship with commercial jump engines for the tankers and colliers.

[Father Tim]

Commercial, as I understand it, isn't the same as "Civilian". The civilians use it, but so too does the military.

Correct, but you have your terminology backwards.  "Civilian" means "not Military" and describes some engine types and many non-weaponry systems and maintenance requirements and entire hulls that do not include any military components.

"Commercial" -- as in "commercial shipping" -- describes organizations that function to create wealth, and that use entirely civilian (i.e. not military) ships.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of people use the two terms interchangeably the vast majority of the time, so it may be too late to try and separate them.

[Father Tim]

No, I'm not mistaken, because in C# that was changed. And it was reported as a bug, confirmed as a bug and has been squashed since 1.5.3

You're just on an older version, which is fine, but unfortunately I'm not wrong. So my statement on the transports still stands.

It is a bug (Steve said he wasn't really thinking about it and just coded Civ-for-Civ and Mil-for-Mil when writing C# Aurora), it was a bad design choice to leave it that way (i.e. to retro-actively decide it wasn't a bug), and it's ruining my campaigns.  It needs to change back.

[Pedroig]

Commercial, as I understand it, isn't the same as "Civilian". The civilians use it, but so too does the military.

Correct, but you have your terminology backwards.  "Civilian" means "not Military" and describes some engine types and many non-weaponry systems and maintenance requirements and entire hulls that do not include any military components.

"Commercial" -- as in "commercial shipping" -- describes organizations that function to create wealth, and that use entirely civilian (i.e. not military) ships.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of people use the two terms interchangeably the vast majority of the time, so it may be too late to try and separate them.

Terms can be confusing:

Commercial projects are different from government projects, civilian projects are different from military projects.  It is possible to have a Commercial Military projects just as it is possible to have a Governmental Civilian project.

One can take a civilian platform and turn it into a military platform (The E3 Sentry is just a Boeing 707 with some military hardware on it) or take a military platform and turn it into a civilian platform (though this can be trickier, but for example one can own a tank https://www.drivetanks.com/own-one/ which has been stripped of weapon functionality (Main gun 100% after that one gets into local weapon laws/permits)).

In game there are Commercial and Military Components.  A Military vessel may have both installed, a Commercial vessel can only have Commercial Components.  Currently Jump Engines are Commercial Components, which can ALWAYS transport the ship it is installed upon, but can ONLY transport other ships with a matching drive engine type.  So having a "All Purpose" Jump Tender with both Commercial and Military Jump Engines is possible.  (However, I'd like to see such Jump Tenders be like no armour space stations and only allow Commercial components.)