Missile Guidance, Missile Agility & Capacitor Banks

[xenoscepter (OP)]

OG 1st post here:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=13020.msg164840#msg164840

So on the first point, of Missile Guidance it seems that Steve, ever the clever lad, was one step ahead of me. I post this here for posterity and completeness, since I promised an effort post. There will be no math here, at least not yet, because a prior engagement prevents me from dedicated that much time to this at the time of writing. Math may be added as soon as this evening, but we shall see. Your own math is also welcome.

 --- Missile Guidance:

  -- So Missile Agility has been removed in 2.2 along with a slew of additions and general changes to missiles and a whole lot of things besides. The concept of 'Missile Guidance' came to me in a tea-induced sleepless torpor at around 2~3am. Basically, how Missile Agility worked, for anyone reading who doesn't know, is that a tech line gave you X amount of Maneuverability per MSP spent on it. This made your missiles more accurate without them being faster. One serious issue that this created, was that smaller missiles benefited from it a lot more than larger missiles, though this was part of a larger problem with many more parts. So the proposal of a 'Missile Guidance' was to do what agility did, but without the small missile bias. The proposal itself follows.

  -- Missile Guidance would have a tech line, the name of which is/was currently undecided. For our purposes I shall call it "Max Missile Guidance". What this tech line does is to govern the maximum amount of guidance that a missile can derive a benefit from. It's is worth noting, that nothing would be stopping a player from just... adding more, so much as they would not derive a benefit from that investment. The intention for this is that later on, old missiles that overbuilt for guidance WOULD inherit the new maximum as tech advanced, allowing a modicum of future proofing in game terms, and allowing players to role-play various things such as a project needing to deliver now, then the proposed upgrades being delivered later, etc.

  -- In design terms, Missile Guidance would be work as such; with missiles possessing a certain innate amount of guidance, which would count towards that tech governed maximum, making this mechanic more beneficial to larger missiles. Likewise, the player could allocate MSP to Guidance during the missile design process itself, in much the same way the MSP could be devoted to agility. The MSP devoted to guidance and the innate guidance derived from missile's size would be added up and any benefit in excess of the guidance cap would be discarded. This 'Missile Guidance' would be functionally identical to Missile Agility in that it would add accuracy without adding speed.

 --- Missile Agility:

  -- An addendum to the OP, I believe Agility as-is could've been re-introduced instead of the above Guidance proposal, but with the caveat of it being a flat modifier rather than an "X Agility per MSP". Currently all missiles are assumed to have an agility equal to 10, so the proposal would just see the old tech line repurposed to increase this flat value. If combined with the above, then the flat bonus should be reduced by missile size, with larger missiles deriving less of a benefit, but I can already see that being problematic and counter-productive to the end goal of the 'Guidance' proposal... that being added verisimilitude in missile design. The math will tell the tale I'm sure... if I ever get around to it.

 --- Capacitor Banks:

  -- This proposal is the more involved one. So currently, the player designs a beam weapon, which has a power requirement. During the design process, the player specifies a number of capacitors, which then determines the Rate of Fire in increments. Currently, there is no way to specify Capacitors in excess of Capacitor Recharge tech. This proposal aims to create interesting design decisions by creating a means by which to increase the RoF of beam weapons through other means. The proposal follows:

  -- A 'Capacitor Bank' as it shall be called going forward, is a ship component. This component would be designed in the Component Design window, like many other such ship components. In addition to using the Capacitor Recharge Tech line, the Capacitor Bank has three tech lines in and of itself. Maximum Size, Minimum Size, and Efficiency. Maximum Size starts at 300 Tons (6 HS), progresses up to 1,500 Tons (30 HS). The stages for Maximum Size are; 300, 450, 900, 1200, and 1500. Minimum Size Starts at 250 Tons (5 HS) and progresses down to 25 Tons (0.5 HS). The stages for Minimum Size are: 250, 175, 125, 50, and 25. Efficiency begins at 0.20 and works its way up to 1. The increments for this are: 0.2 0.25, 0.33, 0.5, 0.66, 0.75, 0.8 and 1. Maximum Size serves as a pre-requisite for Minimum Size tech, so you will need to research bigger Capacitor Banks before you can research smaller ones. Likewise, the existing Capacitor Recharge tech serves as a pre-requisite for the Efficiency tech line, and so you must first research better capacitors before you can research more efficient Capacitor Banks. The Efficiency tech caps out at 1 after Capacitor Recharge 10. The initial tech line for this is called "Capacitor Banks, and is available after Capacitor Recharge Tech 1. Researching Capacitor Banks unlocks the Maximum Size, Minimum Size and Efficiency lines.

   - The strength of a Capacitor Bank is derived from the following formula: ((Component Hull Size x 50) x Capacitor Recharge Tech) x Efficiency. So a 300 Ton Capacitor Bank using Capacitor Recharge 2 and 0.2 Efficiency would have a total capacity of 120. The design fields for the component are: Size, Capacitor Recharge, and Efficiency. Using lower tech Recharge and Efficiency options results in a cheaper, but larger component overall. Actual cost modifiers TBD.

  -- When designing a Ship Class, Capacitor Banks are mounted in much the same way as shield generators and engines, that is only one design may be mounted at a time but multiple of that design may be mounted. During gameplay, a Capacitor Bank will require power from a shipboard reactor to function. It has a draw equal to its combined output, so for example Capacitor Banks totaling up to 100 would impart a power requirement of 100. The rules of power distribution for Capacitor Banks are almost identical to the ones for beam weapons, with the caveat that Capacitor Banks always draw power AFTER beam weapons. Unlike beam weapons, Capacitor Banks will try to draw power equally, so mounting 4 Capacitor banks with 25 power each will see them fully recharged in 5 increments (25 seconds) if 6 power is available.

  -- When beam weapons are fired, all Capacitor Banks also discharge, but only if they are full. When they discharge, they act like shipboard reactors with an output equal to their total capacity. So  four Capacitor Banks with 25 capacity each would output 100 power. Unlike reactors, however, Capacitor Banks can provide power in excess of a beam weapons own capacitors. This power is distributed evenly among all beam weapons firing IN THE SAME INCREMENT. So if you are firing five beam weapons in that increment, and you had four Capacitor Banks with 25 capacity each, that would provide an extra 20 points of capacity to each of those beam weapons, along with an extra 20 points of POWER. In this way, if those five beam weapons each had 20 capacitors, and a power requirement of 40, instead of firing every other increment (10 seconds), they would fire every increment (5 seconds) assuming that you had four Capacitor Banks with 25 capacity each AND a power plant capable of outputting at least 140 points worth of power.

  -- So I'll do some quick breakdowns to help drive home the point:

   - Ship A has 4 Lasers. Each laser needs 10 power to function, and has a capacitor rating of 10. That means those lasers fire every 5 seconds, or every increment. This means that, provided Ship A has a reactor with at least 40 output, those lasers won't derive any benefit from Capacitor Banks, because Rate of Fire is capped to one shot per increment.

   - However, let's say Ship A does NOT have a reactor capable of outputting at least 40 power. It instead has a reactor that outputs 24 power and mounts a Capacitor Bank with 20 points of capacity. This will result in the first two shots of those lasers being per increment, and every five shots after that will be on a per increment basis as well. Thus Ship A will fire in a salvo pattern of 1-1-2-2-2-2-2-1-1 and derive at least some benefit... assuming it isn't just more space effective to mount the 40 power reactor.

   - Ship B mounts a single, big ole' honkin laser with an power requirement of 75 and a Capacitor count of 10. The empire fielding Ship B doesn't have any better Capacitor Tech than 10, so by mounting a power plant with 75 output and a Capacitor Bank with 65 Capacity, that big ole' honkin laser can fire once per increment. Thus deriving a good benefit. Even at the maximum tech for Capacitor Recharge, a Capacitor Bank with 50 capacity would let that big ole' honkin laser fire once per increment.

 --- So, overall the Capacitor Bank would give more variety to beam ship designs. One thing I nearly overlooked is the failure rate. I'm not sure if imposing maintenance failures for capacitor banks would be helpful or not, or if it would make them useless or OP. So I'll see if this suggestion gets implemented before worrying about that, since Steve would likely figure it out via playtesting anyways if it does.

[Bremen]

--- Capacitor Banks:

  -- This proposal is the more involved one. So currently, the player designs a beam weapon, which has a power requirement. During the design process, the player specifies a number of capacitors, which then determines the Rate of Fire in increments. Currently, there is no way to specify Capacitors in excess of Capacitor Recharge tech. This proposal aims to create interesting design decisions by creating a means by which to increase the RoF of beam weapons through other means. The proposal follows:

  -- A 'Capacitor Bank' as it shall be called going forward, is a ship component. This component would be designed in the Component Design window, like many other such ship components. In addition to using the Capacitor Recharge Tech line, the Capacitor Bank has three tech lines in and of itself. Maximum Size, Minimum Size, and Efficiency. Maximum Size starts at 300 Tons (6 HS), progresses up to 1,500 Tons (30 HS). The stages for Maximum Size are; 300, 450, 900, 1200, and 1500. Minimum Size Starts at 250 Tons (5 HS) and progresses down to 25 Tons (0.5 HS). The stages for Minimum Size are: 250, 175, 125, 50, and 25. Efficiency begins at 0.20 and works its way up to 1. The increments for this are: 0.2 0.25, 0.33, 0.5, 0.66, 0.75, 0.8 and 1. Maximum Size serves as a pre-requisite for Minimum Size tech, so you will need to research bigger Capacitor Banks before you can research smaller ones. Likewise, the existing Capacitor Recharge tech serves as a pre-requisite for the Efficiency tech line, and so you must first research better capacitors before you can research more efficient Capacitor Banks. The Efficiency tech caps out at 1 after Capacitor Recharge 10. The initial tech line for this is called "Capacitor Banks, and is available after Capacitor Recharge Tech 1. Researching Capacitor Banks unlocks the Maximum Size, Minimum Size and Efficiency lines.

   - The strength of a Capacitor Bank is derived from the following formula: ((Component Hull Size x 50) x Capacitor Recharge Tech) x Efficiency. So a 300 Ton Capacitor Bank using Capacitor Recharge 2 and 0.2 Efficiency would have a total capacity of 120. The design fields for the component are: Size, Capacitor Recharge, and Efficiency. Using lower tech Recharge and Efficiency options results in a cheaper, but larger component overall. Actual cost modifiers TBD.

  -- When designing a Ship Class, Capacitor Banks are mounted in much the same way as shield generators and engines, that is only one design may be mounted at a time but multiple of that design may be mounted. During gameplay, a Capacitor Bank will require power from a shipboard reactor to function. It has a draw equal to its combined output, so for example Capacitor Banks totaling up to 100 would impart a power requirement of 100. The rules of power distribution for Capacitor Banks are almost identical to the ones for beam weapons, with the caveat that Capacitor Banks always draw power AFTER beam weapons. Unlike beam weapons, Capacitor Banks will try to draw power equally, so mounting 4 Capacitor banks with 25 power each will see them fully recharged in 5 increments (25 seconds) if 6 power is available.

  -- When beam weapons are fired, all Capacitor Banks also discharge, but only if they are full. When they discharge, they act like shipboard reactors with an output equal to their total capacity. So  four Capacitor Banks with 25 capacity each would output 100 power. Unlike reactors, however, Capacitor Banks can provide power in excess of a beam weapons own capacitors. This power is distributed evenly among all beam weapons firing IN THE SAME INCREMENT. So if you are firing five beam weapons in that increment, and you had four Capacitor Banks with 25 capacity each, that would provide an extra 20 points of capacity to each of those beam weapons, along with an extra 20 points of POWER. In this way, if those five beam weapons each had 20 capacitors, and a power requirement of 40, instead of firing every other increment (10 seconds), they would fire every increment (5 seconds) assuming that you had four Capacitor Banks with 25 capacity each AND a power plant capable of outputting at least 140 points worth of power.

  -- So I'll do some quick breakdowns to help drive home the point:

   - Ship A has 4 Lasers. Each laser needs 10 power to function, and has a capacitor rating of 10. That means those lasers fire every 5 seconds, or every increment. This means that, provided Ship A has a reactor with at least 40 output, those lasers won't derive any benefit from Capacitor Banks, because Rate of Fire is capped to one shot per increment.

   - However, let's say Ship A does NOT have a reactor capable of outputting at least 40 power. It instead has a reactor that outputs 24 power and mounts a Capacitor Bank with 20 points of capacity. This will result in the first two shots of those lasers being per increment, and every five shots after that will be on a per increment basis as well. Thus Ship A will fire in a salvo pattern of 1-1-2-2-2-2-2-1-1 and derive at least some benefit... assuming it isn't just more space effective to mount the 40 power reactor.

   - Ship B mounts a single, big ole' honkin laser with an power requirement of 75 and a Capacitor count of 10. The empire fielding Ship B doesn't have any better Capacitor Tech than 10, so by mounting a power plant with 75 output and a Capacitor Bank with 65 Capacity, that big ole' honkin laser can fire once per increment. Thus deriving a good benefit. Even at the maximum tech for Capacitor Recharge, a Capacitor Bank with 50 capacity would let that big ole' honkin laser fire once per increment.

 --- So, overall the Capacitor Bank would give more variety to beam ship designs. One thing I nearly overlooked is the failure rate. I'm not sure if imposing maintenance failures for capacitor banks would be helpful or not, or if it would make them useless or OP. So I'll see if this suggestion gets implemented before worrying about that, since Steve would likely figure it out via playtesting anyways if it does.

There's a saying I've become fond of lately, "Complexity is a currency game designers use to buy depth." Which is to say, complexity isn't good on its own, the point is to make the gameplay you want with as little complexity as possible. I think these capacitor banks are a really bad way to approach that, being more complicated than they need to be to accomplish your design goals. They also have some exploitable flaws as written; you could vastly reduce the recharge rates of your weapons (making them cheaper, and smaller in the case of lasers) and still use a capacitor to fire them every increment, just as one example.

I think a better way to approach it would just be to add it as a design field when making beam weapons, which I've suggested before. IE if you're designing a laser that uses 10 power to fire and has a capacitor rate of 4, an additional field would be in the designer for "additional capacitors". You could select to give it, oh, 12 additional capacitor (3x your 4 capacitor rate), and then when not in use it would charge until it had 22 capacitor; fire it once and it's down to 12, charges 4 more that increment to 16, and can fire again, down to 10, fire again and it's at 4. So you'd get 3 shots at 5 second increments and then it would be back to slower rate (though it would be once every 2.5 increments instead of 3 due to the ability to bank a little extra instead of only charging 2 every third increment).

Alternatively instead of giving that to all weapons I think that might be a fun addition for a specific kind of beam weapon to make it stand out; probably plasma carronades because they currently don't have anything particularly distinguishing.

[nuclearslurpee]

Missile guidance is already a story of the past, and personally I'm okay with Agility being gone as it wasn't very interesting anyways.

As far as the capacitor bank idea goes, I'm very leery of this as it can easily become a "must-have" for beam weapons. If I can make my 20cm lasers fire every 5 seconds, even just for 3-4 increments, it is a huge advantage in a beam fight as I can take out many systems or ships before the enemy fleet gets a second volley of fire if they do not have this tech or component. It's difficult to see how this can be balanced to make an interesting decision and not a meta-breaking optimum point - or, similarly, a component players will quickly learn to avoid using because the NPRs cannot cope, similar to how most players avoid box launchers because NPR point defenses can't cope with it.

I do think the idea of a capacitor bank which acts as a power reservoir supplementing reactors is an interesting one though, as you would have the option to mount a capacitor bank to store power (probably cheaply, but not tonnage-efficiently) and fewer or lower-power reactors. Basically you would have the option to build your beam ships a bit cheaper, but once you drain the capacitors your cheap ships are much less effective as their ROF drops horrendously. That seems interesting to me; overriding the limits on maximum (minimum?) ROF much less so.

[kilo]

I have given the capacitor banks some thought and I would like to give you an example on how it might work without killing the balance. Let us assume we have a simple laser with a 15cm caliber and capacitor tech level 4:

Right now everyone of us would build this weapon
15cm Laser C3/R3

The weapon cannot benefit from capacitor tech 4, as it requires 6 power to cycle and reaching 6 takes 2 increments either way and excess power is lost. The order of actions when it comes to firing the weapon is.
1. check for power level
2. if power level = 6, fire
3. recharge 3 points of power

So far so ordinary. Now how could a capacitor bank work for such a weapon without breaking balance? My idea is that the capacitor bank could be an integral part of the weapons design without increasing the total power throughput and therefore the damage output of the weapon. In my mind a laser with such a capacitor bank would work like this.
1. check for power level
2. if power level = 6, fire
3. charge the capacitor bank from the reactor
4. charge the weapon from the capacitor bank

This weapon would be able to hold six points of energy in the barrel and some quantity in the capacitor bank. This quantity has to depend on the guns power consumption and maybe a technology that increases capacity. Such a gun could store a few shots, which it could fire in quick succession. The cost of this has to be a lower capacitor rating like we have on reduced size lasers now. In my mind it could look like this:
15cm Laser C1.5/R3  Bank 20
 
This weapon would store 6 energy in the barrel, 20 in the capacitor bank and pay for that with a capacitor recharge rate that is 3/2. Cost and displacement of the weapon could possibly remain the same. Upgrading the gun to a capacitor level 4 version would increase the recharge rate to two. It would therefore make a meaningful difference over the previous version.

[nuclearslurpee]

I have given the capacitor banks some thought and I would like to give you an example on how it might work without killing the balance. Let us assume we have a simple laser with a 15cm caliber and capacitor tech level 4

If I read this right, it is a bit in the opposite direction of my thought but very interesting! So basically, you make the weapon more expensive by mounting an overspec capacitor, but you can use smaller/fewer reactors to charge it. Basically you pay more for the weapon but you can potentially mount a bit more weight of fire in exchange for lacking endurance in longer fighters once you exhaust the capacitor bank. As opposed to the idea of making a ship cheaper at the cost of the same limitation.

Also if it is part of the weapon design process we do not need a new component, and it makes using "older" tech levels of weapons (e.g. 15 cm in this examples, since you'd usually match Cap 4 with 20 cm lasers) an interesting design choice.

[kilo]

If we get something along the proposed capacitor banks, they have to be in line with the currently available options. Allowing it to be a secondary recharge tech for beam weapons would make it extremely strong and potentially balance breaking. Reducing the endurance is the only way to make it a viable option instead of a strictly superior one. The burst capability will be extremely valuable in close quarter engagements and for area defense anti-missle roles against box launcher salvos. In a prolonged or long range engagement a ship equipped with these weapons would struggle against conventional warships of continuous missile attacks .

[Ghrathryn]

Before I begin, I'm not sure if this is overlapping the other ideas for capacitors or not, so apologies if it does.

In terms of changing the capacitor as a component, there's honestly two possible things you could do, though you may need ships to have a new permanent 'stat' of power/energy stored.

• Change it within the weapon to hold 'x shots/seconds of charge' with that being its own tech line. What this would do is increase the size of the weapon mechanism, but potentially allow it to fire at maximum rate (1 shot/5 seconds) until it runs out of juice, which would be something you'd set via a couple of dropdowns on the design screen. Likely a #shots and an energy efficiency. The higher the first, the larger the total weapon, the higher the second, the smaller due to more energy per hull space (kinda like how a CIWS is built).
• The other route is to have a separate component that has at base a max energy in, max energy out (or more probably max weapons supported) and max energy/efficiency as some potential research trees. It works similarly, except instead of being purely giving one weapon an amount of shots at 1/interval, it's got a storage and possibly draw so it supports an amount of weapons, allowing 1 shot/interval while it's got power.

You could also potentially combine them to say design a capacitor then design a weapon with it. Granted that's getting into potentially more complexity than required/viable for enjoyment.

Most likely it's a big battery element with a maximum input energy and a maximum storage and an efficency as primary techs, maybe have a weapon count ala possibly having one for 1, 2, 3 or 4 guns allowing a single capacitor for a turret instead of each gun on the turret needing their own or possibly 10 hull mounted, whichever works.

It's possible you could also have the second type of capacitor be something you could switch to shields allowing a shield to pull power from a 'ready pool' and have generators supply both with energy.

[misanthropope]

ooo and then engines could produce energy that replenishes the pool every increment, and players could fill out basically a form 10k to account for power usage for their ships every five second increment and then

*dragged off into a blind alley by kole and ketrick*

[xenoscepter (OP)]

 --- The sass isn't needed. They were polite about it and have 14 posts to their name. Not everyone knows what a damnable disaster Power Tracking would spiral into. Please be nice, if only on replies where I am the OP...


 --- I would like to fill out a Form 10K for power usage on every ship. That is my idea of a good time, for most it is not.

 --- Updating here to say that I like kilo's idea for Capacitor Banks as Burst Fire options. I also like Bremen's implementation idea, letting it be a function of a specific weapon design, so Burst Lasers or such could be a thing. Not sure how that would pan out, or if it ever shall at all, but that's where I'm tossing my lot.