Civilian missile transport, and hangars

[Steve Walmsley]

Armour isn't actually a very good damage sink, too expensive per HTK and harder to repair (even if it becomes easier).
But the things I stated were meant more as examples, probably not worth picking apart details of damage sinks here, sorry I went too deeply into specifics.

I'd greatly welcome natural ways of building auxiliaries that are less of a logistics burden, I've often jumped through hoops to do so (e.g. tractors & pods, excessive maintenance life intending to keep it in deep space until scrapping).
the new options are dangerous as they allow us to circumvent fundamental restrictions on warships. At the same time, maybe not open-ended enough (auxiliary carriers, but no armed merchant cruisers).

My problem is that I fear the game may become less of an honest challenge, that players will have to consciously hold back to have an engaging experience. I'll have some fun playing with the new options, but from what I've read so far I'm inclined to believe that the new options will reduce the overall depth of the game. Maybe considerably.

As I mentioned, commercial hangars do not provide maintenance so warships are no better off than before. Auxiliary carriers as a replacement for regular carriers won't work because your fighters will blow up through lack of maintenance, although you might use an auxiliary carrier for a short transfer run to a normal carrier.

The changes mean you can have forward-deployed repair ships that don't cost far more than the warships they are intended to repair, which is much more similar to the real world. We don't currently use the USS Nimitz as a repair dock for example.

You can also have maintenance facilities in planetless systems, which adds an extra dimension but doesn't strike me as game breaking.

[bean]

Couple of clarification questions.  Do civilian hangars reload box launchers?  I don't expect that they do, but it does need clearing up.
Also, can you nest things inside hangars?  Could I, for instance, build an auxiliary carrier, and then put a bunch of small military hangars inside it, and fill them with fighters? 
And the auxiliary carrier could be quite useful in a couple of ways.  The first thing that springs to mind is moving FACs and other small, fast, jump drive-less craft around non-tactically.  There's no need for maintainence, as they don't normally deploy from the carrier, and it's cheaper in fuel and logistical headaches.  Another would be carrying convoy escorts which have military engines and thus can't use civilian jump drives.  Even an FAC-carrier might be of some use when paired with a maintainence ship.  But over all, I can't see any of these displacing normal fleet units as the way of the future.

[Rich.h]

Couple of clarification questions.  Do civilian hangars reload box launchers?  I don't expect that they do, but it does need clearing up.
Also, can you nest things inside hangars?  Could I, for instance, build an auxiliary carrier, and then put a bunch of small military hangars inside it, and fill them with fighters? 
And the auxiliary carrier could be quite useful in a couple of ways.  The first thing that springs to mind is moving FACs and other small, fast, jump drive-less craft around non-tactically.  There's no need for maintainence, as they don't normally deploy from the carrier, and it's cheaper in fuel and logistical headaches.  Another would be carrying convoy escorts which have military engines and thus can't use civilian jump drives.  Even an FAC-carrier might be of some use when paired with a maintainence ship.  But over all, I can't see any of these displacing normal fleet units as the way of the future.

Up to at least 7.1 nesting is at the very least dangerous and sometimes impossible, Aurora really doesn't seem to like the idea of a hanger inside a hanger. If you try to dock a carrier with craft on board to a larger hanger you run the high risk of all the parasite craft of the carrier simply going poof, and being lost to the void. In general you have to move a carrier to a hanger then undock all parasite craft before docking the TG.

[Mor]

You are still affected by maintenance requirements while in a civilian hangar.

ohh that's the spot, this was a big concern. Otherwise it would be silly considering that we already have the no overhauls and maintenance supplies option.

[Steve Walmsley]

Couple of clarification questions.  Do civilian hangars reload box launchers?  I don't expect that they do, but it does need clearing up.
Also, can you nest things inside hangars?  Could I, for instance, build an auxiliary carrier, and then put a bunch of small military hangars inside it, and fill them with fighters? 
And the auxiliary carrier could be quite useful in a couple of ways.  The first thing that springs to mind is moving FACs and other small, fast, jump drive-less craft around non-tactically.  There's no need for maintainence, as they don't normally deploy from the carrier, and it's cheaper in fuel and logistical headaches.  Another would be carrying convoy escorts which have military engines and thus can't use civilian jump drives.  Even an FAC-carrier might be of some use when paired with a maintainence ship.  But over all, I can't see any of these displacing normal fleet units as the way of the future.

You can't reload box launchers in civilian hangars.

Not sure on nesting. I have never written any specific code for carrier in carrier but there are bug reports in this area. I need to do some testing.

[bean]

You can't reload box launchers in civilian hangars.

Not sure on nesting. I have never written any specific code for carrier in carrier but there are bug reports in this area. I need to do some testing.

Would it be possible to have them reload at, say, maintenance facility rates?  I ask because at the moment it's practically impossible to use box launchers on larger ships because of reload considerations.  I admit that my various attempts to do so failed for other reasons, too, but it would be nice to have it as an option.

[Steve Walmsley]

Would it be possible to have them reload at, say, maintenance facility rates?  I ask because at the moment it's practically impossible to use box launchers on larger ships because of reload considerations.  I admit that my various attempts to do so failed for other reasons, too, but it would be nice to have it as an option.

Because of the advantages of large salvo densities, I prefer to leave the logistical constraints of box launchers as they are now. Otherwise it is an easy decision to select box launchers.

[Iranon]

Regarding auxiliary carriers - unless I'm gravely misunderstanding something, there's a world of difference whether the carrier has to worry about maintenance or the fighters do.
If relevant, fighters respond very well to engineering spaces, several years of maintenance life is surprisingly cheap. Instead of overhauls, we can simply exchange fighter complements between a civilian and military hangar.

Regarding box launchers on full-sized ships - they have their limitations but one overwhelming alpha strike followed by beam-based cleanup can work quite well from my experience.
Box and full-size are already my most frequently chosen options.

[ardem]

As I mentioned, commercial hangars do not provide maintenance so warships are no better off than before. Auxiliary carriers as a replacement for regular carriers won't work because your fighters will blow up through lack of maintenance, although you might use an auxiliary carrier for a short transfer run to a normal carrier.

The changes mean you can have forward-deployed repair ships that don't cost far more than the warships they are intended to repair, which is much more similar to the real world. We don't currently use the USS Nimitz as a repair dock for example.

You can also have maintenance facilities in planetless systems, which adds an extra dimension but doesn't strike me as game breaking.

I cannot see how commercial hangar are going to be useful, say you want to transport 20 fighters 4 systems away and the transport take 2 months to get there, your fighters are aimed at 1 month deployments, and maintenance at a bare minimum. Because you extract speed out of it. The fighter engine or what is going to blow up even get to the destination, after runnign out of parts. Even if you do have a module since fighters have short engineering bays, it be drawing part every a day or 5 day cycle, you run out of parts on your 20 fighter very fast.

Unless Maintenance is stopped the commercial hangars are useless for transport.  I would of love to see comm hangars the same as military hangar except you cannot launch fighters unless around colony orbit.

[Steve Walmsley]

I cannot see how commercial hangar are going to be useful, say you want to transport 20 fighters 4 systems away and the transport take 2 months to get there, your fighters are aimed at 1 month deployments, and maintenance at a bare minimum. Because you extract speed out of it. The fighter engine or what is going to blow up even get to the destination, after runnign out of parts. Even if you do have a module since fighters have short engineering bays, it be drawing part every a day or 5 day cycle, you run out of parts on your 20 fighter very fast.

Unless Maintenance is stopped the commercial hangars are useless for transport.  I would of love to see comm hangars the same as military hangar except you cannot launch fighters unless around colony orbit.

The commercial hangar bay is mainly for repairs. However, I have had fighters sat in orbit for months waiting for a carrier with no maintenance and not had any failures. Although they have no engineering spaces, their chance of failure is very low due to their small size. For example, here is the relevant portion of the US fighter from my current campaign:

F-40 Starfury class Fighter    300 tons     2 Crew     53.4 BP      TCS 5.99  TH 42  EM 0
7011 km/s     Armour 1-3     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 2.25
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 59%    IFR 0.8%    1YR 3    5YR 43    Max Repair 13 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.5 months    Spare Berths 0   

The class AFR is 59% per year and that is the rate when the fighter has already been in space for a full year (it starts at 0% and will get to 59% after one year of deployment and continue getting higher after that). A fighter with a low deployment clock will have very little chance of failure. A 3 month trip aboard an auxiliary carrier would be very low risk.

[Iranon]

@ ardem:
Or just put an engineering space on your fighters, by the time their maintenance life is a concern they may be obsolescent anyway.
Whether you treat them as disposable or shove them into a PDC hangar after a few years... much less hassle than having to overhaul the carrier.

[83athom]

Or even just putting 1-3 maintenance modules on the carrier. That would make it so fighters would, you know, not explode when you don't want them to.

[Steve Walmsley]

Or even just putting 1-3 maintenance modules on the carrier. That would make it so fighters would, you know, not explode when you don't want them to.

Unfortunately, maintenance modules don't work on fighters

[iceball3]

Unfortunately, maintenance modules don't work on fighters

Maintenance module, giving maint to a series of "hangar shells" which are ships with no engines or anything, just military hangars, with nested fighters inside?
I'm personally of the opinion that commercial hangars should only be able to transport "mothballed" ships (such that it would be a ship with all ordnance, crew, and fuel removed, and would require industry/shipyard tasks to mothball or de-mothball), but I understand that maybe not everyone shares that opinion.

[ardem]

The commercial hangar bay is mainly for repairs. However, I have had fighters sat in orbit for months waiting for a carrier with no maintenance and not had any failures. Although they have no engineering spaces, their chance of failure is very low due to their small size. For example, here is the relevant portion of the US fighter from my current campaign:

F-40 Starfury class Fighter    300 tons     2 Crew     53.4 BP      TCS 5.99  TH 42  EM 0
7011 km/s     Armour 1-3     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 2.25
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 59%    IFR 0.8%    1YR 3    5YR 43    Max Repair 13 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.5 months    Spare Berths 0   

The class AFR is 59% per year and that is the rate when the fighter has already been in space for a full year (it starts at 0% and will get to 59% after one year of deployment and continue getting higher after that). A fighter with a low deployment clock will have very little chance of failure. A 3 month trip aboard an auxiliary carrier would be very low risk.

Thanks for the extra info I would look into that. Right now I have some 1000ton FAC's that are chewing maintenance every five days cause they outside there overhaul allotment, which was 2 years. I not tested fighter to the n degree because I always have a PDC or Carrier for them to be in before I build them