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Posted by: alex_brunius
« on: April 13, 2018, 02:16:55 AM »

I don't really mind either way ( warheads vs fuel ), as long as it's consistent with other mechanics, is "fun" and work well from a game balance perspective to provide meaningful warship design choices.
Posted by: Person012345
« on: April 12, 2018, 11:30:40 PM »

This is getting needlessly convoluted. TN physics, we don't know how they works. These are warheads built with imaginary materials. As such the arguments "nukes don't explode" is pointless and just wastes time.
Again, sort of the point. It was purely a counterargument to "it's more realistic that they explode at full strength" as I think that it's more important for this balancing choice to be done for desired gameplay effect rather than "it's realistic". Because neither is "realistic" and anything can be justified ingame. So yes, arguing what is more realistic is indeed a waste of time. Sort of the point, as I believe I was the one who first said it, yet have never been against missiles exploding at full warhead strength, I just think that trying to portray any particular way as "unrealistic" is pointless.
Posted by: QuakeIV
« on: April 12, 2018, 05:15:10 PM »

I am coming over to the side of magazine explosions as well.  Preferably more common ones with more tools to deal with them as the guy above said, huge randomization is no fun at all.  Explosions in general however are quite fun.
Posted by: Graham
« on: April 12, 2018, 05:47:30 AM »

I am usually not a fan of huge critical hits, since in my experience since they are so rare they almost never occur, and so add nothing. Or when they do occur and the flagship of your fleet detonates on a 1 in 1000 chance you are just left with a bad taste in your mouth.

Since any side can be argued from a “realism” point. I would rather explosions be common enough to be a factor in most large battles, but with enough negation tools available to deal with it.

Say that you can build something into your magazine which reduces the explosion by a flat %. The higher the % the higher the efficiency cost to the magazine. That way you can just roll the dice, bit at least then when your newly commissioned flagship explodes in a cloud of hellfire, you know it was your fault and not just something you had no control over.
Posted by: Zincat
« on: April 12, 2018, 02:40:32 AM »

This is getting needlessly convoluted. TN physics, we don't know how they works. These are warheads built with imaginary materials. As such the arguments "nukes don't explode" is pointless and just wastes time. Trying to evaluate the explosion based on fuel is also pointless and just running around the issue.

If the intention is: "warheads are volatile and so magazines can explode", then they do. I think it clear that Steve wants this one option. Personally, I also like this option.

Since this is what happens in game, then it follows that magazine explosion, while unlikely and rather rare, should be deadly. You have a powerful explosion happening INSIDE your ship. And it should be based on warhead size, not on flimsy things like fuel amount...
Posted by: Person012345
« on: April 11, 2018, 11:31:35 PM »

Well the issue is that they likely won't achieve the same effect.  AMM's generally have a much larger fuel:warhead ratio than ASM's because there's no reason really to have more than 1WH on an AMM.  So Anti-missile ships will be much more vulnerable than ASM ships if the magazine explosion size is determined by the fuel quantity rather than the warhead size.

Maybe it should be both fuel and warhead?  And we could have magazine armor reduce the damage done by the blast, to simulate the idea that a heavily-armored magazine would do a better job containing the blast than a paper-thin one.
This was my point about the choice should be dependent upon which it's easier to balance for the intended gameplay effect.
Posted by: Bremen
« on: April 11, 2018, 10:54:05 PM »

Well the issue is that they likely won't achieve the same effect.  AMM's generally have a much larger fuel:warhead ratio than ASM's because there's no reason really to have more than 1WH on an AMM.  So Anti-missile ships will be much more vulnerable than ASM ships if the magazine explosion size is determined by the fuel quantity rather than the warhead size.

Maybe it should be both fuel and warhead?  And we could have magazine armor reduce the damage done by the blast, to simulate the idea that a heavily-armored magazine would do a better job containing the blast than a paper-thin one.

AMMs actually would tend to have a larger WH:fuel ratio than ASMs. There's no point in larger than a strength 1 warhead, but there's basically no point in any fuel beyond the tiniest amount either.

Another difference would be that warhead based explosions would scale with tech, but fuel based ones wouldn't (since higher tech missiles generally have similar fuel distribution as lower tech ones, but stronger warheads).
Posted by: Barkhorn
« on: April 11, 2018, 09:25:48 PM »

Well the issue is that they likely won't achieve the same effect.  AMM's generally have a much larger fuel:warhead ratio than ASM's because there's no reason really to have more than 1WH on an AMM.  So Anti-missile ships will be much more vulnerable than ASM ships if the magazine explosion size is determined by the fuel quantity rather than the warhead size.

Maybe it should be both fuel and warhead?  And we could have magazine armor reduce the damage done by the blast, to simulate the idea that a heavily-armored magazine would do a better job containing the blast than a paper-thin one.
Posted by: Person012345
« on: April 11, 2018, 08:54:34 PM »

The "nukes don't just explode" point was as a counter to the idea of how much power is "realistic". You can handwave it however you want, that won't affect how realistic it is. You could handwave any value. The explosions should be balanced around the intended ingame effect, is more the point. Explanations of what is happening can be left to the individual. Now there's a side issue of whether magazine explosion strength should be based on warhead value or fuel amount but ultimately it won't matter to the player if they both achieve the same ingame effect. That should really be about what makes it easier to achieve the desired balance in the game.
Posted by: Darkminion
« on: April 11, 2018, 02:11:20 PM »

One interesting thing to consider is a lot of the catastrophic magazine detonations mentioned above were due to those ships using two part ammo, a shell and a charge. I was looking up magazine detonations to try and abstract it in a way that would fit Aurora as missiles are a single unit. I did find some things on smaller ships that had their magazines detonate such as destroyers in the Pacific, these use self contained shells which people are more familiar with (single unit ammunition). In pretty much all cases I found this resulted in the loss of the ship. The only real exception I could find was during the attack on Pearl Harbor. The USS Shaw took a hit and had its forward magazine detonate while in dry dock, they ended up having to replace the entire Bow of the ship. Another thing to note is that the most common cause of a magazine detonation was fire rather than a direct hit. While it would be neat to see fires and their effect on crews (I would love to be able to recover and press burnt out hulk back into service) I'm not sure how well it would fit in Aurora (although I could've swore Ive seen something for this in the VB Aurora database).

Another angle to approach this from in terms of ammunition detonation would be in Tanks. A few modern tanks have blow out panels which allow the force of a magazine detonation to be mitigated. These blow off panels allow energy to escape rather than keeping it bottled up and causing more catastrophic damage to the vehicle. Instead of outright ejecting ordinance could a system where the damage is basically vented off be a better hand wave? Would this dump the damage outright or would it be more of a mitigation? Could this be simple damage mitigation (Y% chance of X% of damage is vented into space) for low tech magazines and better chances for partial or even total mitigation of damage? Would this cause the ships thermal signature to skyrocket? I feel something along these lines would provide more variance rather than the all or nothing approach we have now. It would also still allow for big explosions (ask me about my deep magazines, combat colliers, and large numbers!) and allow the player to mitigate or stop this damage by design/tech.

As for the whole "Nukes don't set off other nukes" thing, maybe TN elements integrated into warhead designs do too good of a job at turning energy into neutrons.  :P
Posted by: Jovus
« on: April 10, 2018, 04:49:13 PM »

HMS Hood would count, I think. As would HMS Queen Mary

But Seydlitz, for example, even managed to continue firing on the enemy after a very impressive turret explosion, and many another ship was rendered combat-incapable, but not outright destroyed.

Edit-to-add: It's important to note, also, that all these are ships which didn't have magazines carefully designed to eject and port off explosions. They are in fact why gun turrets and magazines were re-designed to avoid these explosions.
Posted by: Hazard
« on: April 10, 2018, 04:38:38 PM »

Several British ships during the Battle of Jutland as well. While ships do not seem to evaporate or disappear in a blast of fire and smoke when a magazine goes off, damage was at best crippling and the ship often swiftly sank after the magazine went up.
Posted by: Barkhorn
« on: April 10, 2018, 04:17:21 PM »

However, I can't think of any magazine explosions which have actually completely destroyed the ship in question.
The HMS Hood is the best example I can think of.  Other's I'm aware of are the IJN Yamato and the HMS Barham, though these two would have sunk even if they didn't explode.

Obviously these ships weren't vaporized by the blasts, but they sank in very short order.  If I remember correctly the Hood had sunk completely before the smoke even cleared.
Posted by: Jovus
« on: April 10, 2018, 02:44:42 PM »

Setting aside the concept of the core vs the surface, since I don't have an opinion on that. (It might be cool. It might not. I can't say.)

Most examples of magazine explosions (or, really, turret explosions) I can think of have severely damaged the ship in question, and many of them have fooled observers into thinking the ship was out of action (e.g. Seydlitz at the Battle of Dogger Bank). However, I can't think of any magazine explosions which have actually completely destroyed the ship in question.

With that in mind, I'd model it like the following:
 - First, magazines designed with proper ejection technology have whatever percentage chance to avoid a magazine explosion at all when HTK on a magazine is successful.

- Assuming the magazine fails this role, it has a 10% (or other small, flat, non-negligible) chance for a catastrophic explosion

- Catastrophic explosions add together the warhead damage of all missiles remaining in the magazine in question and apply it to the internals of the ship. Bye-bye.

- Non-catastrophic explosions add together the warhead damage of all missiles remaining in the magazine in question, then multiply it by some fraction (e.g. 80%). This can be flat or tech-dependent, as makes sense. If tech-dependent, I would suggest it's the same tech as magazine ejection chance. This models that proper magazine design not only provides for emergency ejection, but attempts to channel as much of the explosion of possible outside the ship in the case of ejection failure. Then, the explosion is applied to the ship internals, as above.

To provide balance (and, I think, realism) with ships which rely on reactors, reactors should also have a safe-ejection technology which will mitigate the chances and effects of power-plant explosion, though a catastrophic failure could always happen, as with magazines above.

(And of course, 'always hit an empty magazine' is silly.)
Posted by: Rook
« on: April 08, 2018, 07:27:51 AM »

Alright, so I just read up on the Damage Allocation Chart, on the Aurora wiki.   

And, based off the damage model that was already talked about in this thread, which I forgot.   .   .    It sounds like this is well and under control.    So, I will bow out.