C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions

[JustAnotherDude]

Anti-Engine missiles are a reasonable solution, although it seriously hampers beam only runs. Maybe have a special component as well that can fire at max beam range, a tractor beam say, that lowers an enemy speed for an amount of time?

[Hazard]

An engine hunting missile would also be an effective way to force boarding combat, and could be implemented by letting missiles that have only been equipped with thermal sensors have a weighted chance of striking the engines after getting through the armour.

And if engine tuning becomes a thing I'd favour putting the Engine Power Modifier techline to that effect, with engines that have been boosted but running at the 100% power level being slightly less efficient than engines that have not been boosted, while engines running at their maximum boosted level guzzling down fuel at the noted rate. An engine that's running boosted but not to their maximum boost would also be slightly less efficient than engines that were designed with that level of boosting as their maximum.

Engines that have been limited in their maximum power rating to produce less than 100% would not be able to achieve higher than their engines maximum power level, trading flexibility for great fuel efficiency.

[Steve Walmsley]

I don't really like the idea of microwave missiles. There's already a microwave beam weapon, and I don't think doubling up on the same concept adds anything. An anti-engine missile wouldn't be meant as a general purpose weapon, but instead serve the important purpose of making beam combat less all or nothing as it would provide a way to force the opponent to let you close in.

The trick here is going to be making anti-engine missiles a special situation, rather than one that would used all the time. They need to have some disadvantage as well as the anti-engine advantage.

Rather than 'special' missiles, one option would be that missiles that include a thermal sensor(even if ship-guided) are more likely to damage engines if they score internals, while missiles that include an EM sensor are more likely to damage electronics if they score internals. The larger the EM/Thermal seeker, the more likely the damage is directed at engines/electronics. That has the disadvantage that the warhead will be smaller or the range shorter, so it wouldn't be used in general. Also a very easy fix to the code, as all the components already exist.

[Zincat]

I'm not much of a fan on the concept of engine tuners, or whatever.

Honestly speaking, I don't think that the concept of "forcing" an engine to work beyond its maximum speed works well with ultra technology. The most complex and advanced an engine (or anything, really) the smaller are the possible defect and problem tolerance.

I think it's quite safe to assume that with ultra technological engines, once you set a "maximum" engine speed, that's it. Operating beyond it would very quickly prove catastrophic.

I would only be open to something like this IF we go the reactor way: engine stressed beyond its normal limits -> any hit and it goes BOOM. Or maybe, x chance every y seconds of it breaking down entirely. No other compromise is even remotely realistic in my opinion.


As for anti-engine missiles... how about no? Must we have YET another thing that make missiles better than beam weapons? Yes, yes, missiles have to be produced and can be intercepted. But that aside, they're incredibly powerful already.  Put in a anti-engine missile, and beam warships are now immediately completely useless. You just need ONE missile to hit, and your beam dreadnaught is dead in space.
Load your fighters with 10 boxed launcher anti engine missiles, shoot, go away because the enemy beam warships cannot do anything now.


EDIT: as Steve has posted. I would not be against his idea. If you need to put  a decent sensor on missiles, and IF it's only a chance increase, then it's acceptable I suppose.

I would then suggest that thermal reduction would reduce the chance of the missile actually hitting the engine

[JustAnotherDude]

I think that's an appropriate change, one that makes missiles more interesting to design, helps alleviate the major balance issue with beam weapons (though no completely, but that's okay) and is not too difficult to implement.

[QuakeIV]

Engine boosting would only serve the intended purpose if its something you would really really prefer to never have to do it.  I think risking an explosion (and possibly really high maintenance part usage while doing it) would be one way to achieve that.

As was mentioned maybe overloading the engines would cause 'inertial dampener' failures that cause potentially catastrophic crew casualties, which is a really good concept in my opinion.  You could explain that as the overloaded engines occasionally causing a surge that the dampeners weren't able to predict which then slams the crew around and potentially kills some (or all) of them.

If the booster is something that smoothly works all the time then its not going to help the lower tech people, because the higher tech people would have absolutely no reason to not do it themselves.  Some kind of modular system that is very pricey but otherwise pretty low tech to build to enhance the ships ability to engine boost (such as a tuner) might also be an option, insofar as it could be something that costs as much or more than the engines its boosting, can be retrofitted onto existing ships (so you could make the choice to switch over to this), and then gives you an advantage over higher tech ships that chose to not install such an expensive piece of hardware.

Also, anti-engine missiles would probably just intensify the punching-down effect in my opinion, because it seems to me it would be really hard to explain why the higher tech side wouldnt just use it as well (from outside of range of the lower tech side because they have better tech) and then leave them both dead in space and out of weapon range, to be picked off at the leisure of the higher tech side.

e: Maybe an anti-engine beam weapon of some sort that isnt too heavy?  At which point the low-tech side could build some ship that has the highest engine power modifier they could build, and then install the anti engine beam or whatnot onto a ship that is 90% engine.  Perhaps the weapons could viably be built at fighter size, meaning you have a way to mitigate the excessive fuel consumption.  Assuming this was some kind of thing where you would basically be able to very quickly and reliably blow out the enemies engines (and then presumably die) it might be an option to force the enemy to hold still long enough for you to engage.

[Bremen]

I don't really like the idea of microwave missiles. There's already a microwave beam weapon, and I don't think doubling up on the same concept adds anything. An anti-engine missile wouldn't be meant as a general purpose weapon, but instead serve the important purpose of making beam combat less all or nothing as it would provide a way to force the opponent to let you close in.

The trick here is going to be making anti-engine missiles a special situation, rather than one that would used all the time. They need to have some disadvantage as well as the anti-engine advantage.

Rather than 'special' missiles, one option would be that missiles that include a thermal sensor(even if ship-guided) are more likely to damage engines if they score internals, while missiles that include an EM sensor are more likely to damage electronics if they score internals. The larger the EM/Thermal seeker, the more likely the damage is directed at engines/electronics. That has the disadvantage that the warhead will be smaller or the range shorter, so it wouldn't be used in general. Also a very easy fix to the code, as all the components already exist.

Unless the anti-engine missile has a way to penetrate defenses, or at least armor, it's unlikely to function as an anti-kiting measure. With missile combat once you've gotten through shields and armor the enemy is already 90% dead. So it would still have a lot of synergy with boarding, but realistically if you could use that sort of weapon to stop a ship, you could already kill it with normal missiles.

I think the best disadvantage would be for the missiles to do greatly reduced damage. Perhaps 25% or less of a normal missile, and possibly not cause engine explosions. Alternately they could not even destroy engines but instead just temporarily disable them, but I'm not sure how hard that would be to code. That would make them special ordinance because they wouldn't be able to destroy an enemy, or even permanently disable them, as eventually the target would be able to repair its engines.

As for anti-engine missiles... how about no? Must we have YET another thing that make missiles better than beam weapons? Yes, yes, missiles have to be produced and can be intercepted. But that aside, they're incredibly powerful already.  Put in a anti-engine missile, and beam warships are now immediately completely useless. You just need ONE missile to hit, and your beam dreadnaught is dead in space.
Load your fighters with 10 boxed launcher anti engine missiles, shoot, go away because the enemy beam warships cannot do anything now.

The purpose of anti-engine missiles is to make beam warships much more effective, not less. In the current game, a dozen of your beam dreadnoughts would be massacred by a single beam destroyer that was faster with a longer range, which makes them very unfeasible to use. Add a bunch of very short range, very hard to shoot down anti-engine missiles with a range of 2-3m km, and now suddenly those dreadnoughts can force an enemy into their range.

Also, anti-engine missiles would probably just intensify the punching-down effect in my opinion, because it seems to me it would be really hard to explain why the higher tech side wouldnt just use it as well (from outside of range of the lower tech side because they have better tech) and then leave them both dead in space and out of weapon range, to be picked off at the leisure of the higher tech side.

That's the thing, though, anti-engine missiles would counter kiting even if both sides have them (the same is not true of engine tuners). If you're trying to hold the range open, and one of your ships loses half its engines, you have to choose between letting the enemy close or sacrificing that ship. If you're trying to approach the enemy and one of your ships loses half its engines, you can just let the slower ship fall out of formation.

[QuakeIV]

Since the beam dreadnoughts are given to be larger and slower to begin with, they would be both more vulnerable to anti engine missiles (better hit chance against the slower target) and lower in numbers, meaning presumably they would require less anti engine missiles to disable.  I still think it would fundamentally favor the faster people regardless.

e:  Ideally you would build your dreadnoughts with the same general engine percentage as your other ships, so given equal tech the smaller ships wouldn't really be faster anyhow.

Also, anti-engine missiles would probably just intensify the punching-down effect in my opinion, because it seems to me it would be really hard to explain why the higher tech side wouldnt just use it as well (from outside of range of the lower tech side because they have better tech) and then leave them both dead in space and out of weapon range, to be picked off at the leisure of the higher tech side.

That's the thing, though, anti-engine missiles would counter kiting even if both sides have them (the same is not true of engine tuners). If you're trying to hold the range open, and one of your ships loses half its engines, you have to choose between letting the enemy close or sacrificing that ship. If you're trying to approach the enemy and one of your ships loses half its engines, you can just let the slower ship fall out of formation.

Right, and I'm saying the higher tech side with superior missile technology would be able to fight a kiting missile engagement, cripple the lower tech sides engines, and then close in to massacre them from beam range.

[Jorgen_CAB]

That would not really be the same thing. The whole point were a way to retreat for both sides as neither can use weapons during the boosted engine usage, thus you could retreat to a safe zone where you can defend and the enemy can't follow you or they will suffer defeat.

This is why I raised this very problem in my first proposal to this and said that weapon fire controls would not work for a minute or so after the boost is turned off, much like when you do a combat jump through a jump point. You also could be sitting completely still in space for that time before you can start moving again and be rather vulnerable.

For retreating this would be a way to move where you have reserves or some reinforcement arriving.

This would also make it more reliable to split up your forces as it would be easier for a weaker part to retreat towards a stronger part, even for beam combat purposes.

I really think it would make the tactical game more interesting and less decisive as it would give both sides a possibility to disengage if they have roughly equal tech and speeds, that at least is true in a multi-faction campaign. If you have two rather different opponents with tech levels there might not be much difference but that is the same now as well.

It would make combat less decisive and thus patrolling in smaller numbers could be done with a bit less risk. As it is easier to defend against missiles than beam in general it would give you more tactical options. Patrol ships would be armed mainly with anti-missile systems and decent speed with booster to avoid fast beam fighters for examples. As you want decently fuel efficient patrol ships you can't really give the really high powered engines, that makes for a very bad patrol or reconnaissance ship. I could also see other uses for incorporating it into doctrines as a whole.

[Zincat]

The purpose of anti-engine missiles is to make beam warships much more effective, not less. In the current game, a dozen of your beam dreadnoughts would be massacred by a single beam destroyer that was faster with a longer range, which makes them very unfeasible to use. Add a bunch of very short range, very hard to shoot down anti-engine missiles with a range of 2-3m km, and now suddenly those dreadnoughts can force an enemy into their range.

While that is a possible use, the opposite is also true. If you have technological equivalent fleets, a beam weapon fleet is very often the one that is built to be faster. This is by design, after all you need to get in range to shoot.

And so, say you have two fleets. A missile fleet, and a beam fleet. Supposing the missile fleet can surpass the beam fleet point defense (because if not, of course the point is moot), an anti-engine missile like you propose would mean that the missile fleet can escape 100% of the times. Just load a wave of anti engine missiles, disable the enemy ships' engines, leave the system, or get under OWP protection or whatever.
It's a get out of jail free card, unless you make the disablement time super short, like 30 seconds or so.

Mind you, I would be much less against this if beam weapons were not capped at 1.5 million km range... but as it is, if you take speed away from beam warships, they're literally just expensive junk.
 

[QuakeIV]

That would not really be the same thing. The whole point were a way to retreat for both sides as neither can use weapons during the boosted engine usage, thus you could retreat to a safe zone where you can defend and the enemy can't follow you or they will suffer defeat.

This is why I raised this very problem in my first proposal to this and said that weapon fire controls would not work for a minute or so after the boost is turned off, much like when you do a combat jump through a jump point. You also could be sitting completely still in space for that time before you can start moving again and be rather vulnerable.

For retreating this would be a way to move where you have reserves or some reinforcement arriving.

This would also make it more reliable to split up your forces as it would be easier for a weaker part to retreat towards a stronger part, even for beam combat purposes.

I really think it would make the tactical game more interesting and less decisive as it would give both sides a possibility to disengage if they have roughly equal tech and speeds, that at least is true in a multi-faction campaign. If you have two rather different opponents with tech levels there might not be much difference but that is the same now as well.

Regarding the other school of thought here (let the low tech people run away, rather than let the low tech people close the range) maybe that would be easier to implement.  As has been pointed out you could say the boosting ships are just incapable of fighting while engine boosting.  Given that there could be all sorts of interesting side effects associated with engine boosting, I think it would be easier to go for that approach and to justify the fact that the ship cannot do anything to fight while its boosting.

e: The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of less decisive engagements as you have put it in general.  If you can prevent your entire military from being totally crippled after losing one battle, then that does tend to lead to much longer and more complicated wars.  Maybe this is the way to do that.

[Bremen]

Given that the beam dreadnoughts are given to be larger and slower to begin with, they would be both more vulnerable to anti engine missiles and lower in numbers, meaning presumably they would require less anti engine missiles to disable.  I still think it would fundamentally favor the faster people regardless.

e:  Ideally you would build your dreadnoughts with the same engine percentage as the enemy, so given equal tech the smaller ships wouldn't really be faster anyhow.

The dreadnoughts would also have more total engine tonnage and thus be less vulnerable to the missiles, and have more damage control rating so they could get the engines up quicker while the enemy was still disabled. Or as noted, if you have multiple ships you can leave the one with engine damage behind.

And yeah, you could design your dreadnought to be faster, but the point is that in the current system for beams faster ship = invulnerable, and I like the idea of a system that is fuzzier than that - where even if you're slower you can get some punches in, even if you're at a disadvantage.

This is why I raised this very problem in my first proposal to this and said that weapon fire controls would not work for a minute or so after the boost is turned off, much like when you do a combat jump through a jump point. You also could be sitting completely still in space for that time before you can start moving again and be rather vulnerable.

This seems like it would make it completely impossible to ever engage a ship with beam weapons if they didn't want to, since you couldn't catch them, for what it's worth. Basically the current situation but making it so that a faster beam ship couldn't even force a missile ship into range once it was out of missiles, since the missile ship could just turn on its tuners if the beam ship was almost in range, and the beam ship wouldn't be able to engage even if it did use its tuners.

While that is a possible use, the opposite is also true. If you have technological equivalent fleets, a beam weapon fleet is very often the one that is built to be faster. This is by design, after all you need to get in range to shoot.

And so, say you have two fleets. A missile fleet, and a beam fleet. Supposing the missile fleet can surpass the beam fleet point defense (because if not, of course the point is moot), an anti-engine missile like you propose would mean that the missile fleet can escape 100% of the times. Just load a wave of anti engine missiles, disable the enemy ships' engines, leave the system.
It's a get out of jail free card.

Mind you, I would be much less against this if beam weapons were not capped at 1.5 million km range... but as it is, if you take speed away from beam warships, they're literally just expensive junk.

It would work completely the opposite in practice. If they launch a wave of anti-engine missiles and take out the engines on one or two ships, you can leave them behind, and still have 100% beam superiority over pure missile ships. Even if they have such massive crushing superiority that they can disable every engine in your fleet, then A) they could probably just blow up your fleet with missiles before you close the range, and B) you'd be able to repair the engines, probably within less than an hour, and resume the pursuit.

Anti-engine missiles are not symmetrical in nature (one of the primary reasons I like them over tuners). Because of repairs and a fleet being able to leave damaged ships behind, they are far more effective at preventing a fleet from escaping than they are at preventing a fleet from pursuing.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I don't really like the idea of microwave missiles. There's already a microwave beam weapon, and I don't think doubling up on the same concept adds anything. An anti-engine missile wouldn't be meant as a general purpose weapon, but instead serve the important purpose of making beam combat less all or nothing as it would provide a way to force the opponent to let you close in.

The trick here is going to be making anti-engine missiles a special situation, rather than one that would used all the time. They need to have some disadvantage as well as the anti-engine advantage.

Rather than 'special' missiles, one option would be that missiles that include a thermal sensor(even if ship-guided) are more likely to damage engines if they score internals, while missiles that include an EM sensor are more likely to damage electronics if they score internals. The larger the EM/Thermal seeker, the more likely the damage is directed at engines/electronics. That has the disadvantage that the warhead will be smaller or the range shorter, so it wouldn't be used in general. Also a very easy fix to the code, as all the components already exist.

This sounds interesting, especially if it applies to shock damage as well as normal penetration damage.

[Jorgen_CAB]

This seems like it would make it completely impossible to ever engage a ship with beam weapons if they didn't want to, since you couldn't catch them, for what it's worth. Basically the current situation but making it so that a faster beam ship couldn't even force a missile ship into range once it was out of missiles, since the missile ship could just turn on its tuners if the beam ship was almost in range, and the beam ship wouldn't be able to engage even if it did use its tuners.

No... I don't think so... you could use your own boosters to charge against the jump point you think that enemy ships is headed for an sit on it, effectively force the enemy to come to you.

It would open up to a few more interesting situations with multiple manoeuvring forces in beam combat.

It would make two side able to disengage from an otherwise balance engagement with some losses on both sides. Combat in Aurora right now are very decisive, now you could allow for a bit more slow attrition instead. You might dare engage a bit more often in beam combat as you know that it is possible to disengage if it goes sideways.

In most of my multi-faction games beam combat are so dangerous that sides only engage in them if they are very certain to win and it become very one sided. They almost never engage if numbers are even close to similar as they tend to be very one sided eventually with one side being totally wiped out and you never want to be that side.

[Bremen]

In most of my multi-faction games beam combat are so dangerous that sides only engage in them if they are very certain to win and it become very one sided. They almost never engage if numbers are even close to similar as they tend to be very one sided eventually with one side being totally wiped out and you never want to be that side.

I'm sympathetic, but it seems to me this would swing things too far the other way. Missiles are already highly dominant, and if you change things so that beam combat is almost never decisive, it seems to me that the obvious emergent gameplay would be to never build anything but pure missile ships.