A reason not to build huge ships

[Rich.h]

The issue of for example swapping out wooden panels for steel ones though is already pretty well catered for, since armour is an expensive component refitting new armour can quickly push you past 100% or more of the original design cost. At that stage you can end up with a refit taking 2 or even 3 times as long as it does to build a new ship from scratch.

However in the end I still fail to see what changing this mechanic could possibly "add" to the play experience of anyone? As has been stated already that none of the NPR or spoiler races seem to ever field ships in the multi 100kt range, and this is a strict single player game. The effort involved in making large ships generally means the only folk who bother to do so are those who decide they want a deathstar "just because". I myself for example have a game running where the doctrine is to use large vessels as I want them to have many RP subsystems a ship of that class really doesn't need. Now if the mechanics were changed to make it a tedious chore to build up my industry I would either SM the industry in place, or simply SM the ship into being. I still get my RP ship for how I want to play that game but all that really happens is the developer has had to spend time and effort on a mechanic that actually has zero effect.

[bean]

Hell even a new player who doesn't understand some of the game mechanics would probably win as they will bring more ships in to player, both faster and of a general higher tech rating than the larger craft.

You'd be wrong about that.  I've just tested this exact proposition, and new players are terrifyingly bad.  One of them described his strategy as 'hope nobody else has figured out missile defense'.  And his was the best fleet.

On the OP, I don't agree.  The problem is that there is no way in Aurora to distinguish between minor refits that slightly increase ship size (the equivalent of bolting more AA guns to the deck) and things that would require major hull work (adding on more engines).  If anything, I'd say that the cost of an armor refit should be proportional to the fraction of ship size affected.  Adding on a couple of extra fuel bunkers to a freighter should be much cheaper than adding the equivalent amount of tonnage to a frigate.  (This may be how it works now.  I don't know.)

[jem]

Maintenance isn't a big problem. Right now my whole end level battlefleet of large ships eats only a few hundred materials annually.

Strange, my battle ships eats roughly 600 each. And when I make them bigger, I easily cross into four digits. And they are not endlevel in any way.

A hundred years ago we used wooden ships, surely you understand that refit them into metal hull ships would take extensive structural changes....

But we did. Heck to a large degree we still do. We bolted extra metal on the outside, we built armoured boxes to house the powder in and we replaced wooden parts with metal as they failed. But as rot and worm sets in and we learn how to build bigger and stronger (not to mention not needing sails and the like) we built new ones.
And this is before you start to argue what happens if you strip all the internal modules out and slap them in a new hull. Is it a new ship or a retrofit?

[bean]

But we did. Heck to a large degree we still do. We bolted extra metal on the outside, we built armoured boxes to house the powder in and we replaced wooden parts with metal as they failed. But as rot and worm sets in and we learn how to build bigger and stronger (not to mention not needing sails and the like) we built new ones.
And this is before you start to argue what happens if you strip all the internal modules out and slap them in a new hull. Is it a new ship or a retrofit?

Uhh....
Examples?  I can't think of a single case where a ship with a wooden hull was converted to an iron hull.  Not just bolting metal armor on the outside, but turning the ship's basic structure from one to the other.  And I've done a reasonable amount of reading on shipbuilding from that era.
The thing I like least about Aurora's shipbuilding model is the lack of a clear 'hull', and the resulting complications in things like retrofit and shipyard building.  For instance, if I build matched geo and grav survey ships and give them all the same components, except for the specific sensors, I think of them as being built on the same hull, and realistically they should be, and I should be able to build them at the same yard.  But I can't, because all components count when determining yard similarity.  Even though in reality, I should be able to just hand the shipyard whichever module I want and have them install it.
Armor is sometimes conflated with the hull, but it doesn't quite fit.  Yes, most modern designs use armor as part of their structure (modern in this case going back at least 100 years, and probably more like 150), but that doesn't cover the case of bolting iron onto a wooden ship.  (Which didn't happen as much as you'd think, actually.  For a long time, wood was considered better protection, and by the time metallurgy caught up, the nature of warships had changed enough that just cladding existing ships wasn't really viable.)
If I could think of a good way to get a 'hull' mechanism in and working, I'd have suggested it long ago.  It's unspeakably irritating to not be able to simply swap out the guns on my ship when the new ones are just improved versions of the old ones, and by all rights should fit in the same slots.

[boggo2300]

HMS Warrior.  Iron Hull,  Wooden Armour...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Warrior_(1860)

(well that's an over simplification it's armour was 4-5 inches of wrought iron backed by teak,  but MAN the section of the teak they have on display is impressive!),  Warrior is a more interesting tour than HMS Victory is incidentally,  though Victory was quite emotional for me.

[jem]

Uhh....
Examples?  I can't think of a single case where a ship with a wooden hull was converted to an iron hull.  Not just bolting metal armor on the outside, but turning the ship's basic structure from one to the other.  And I've done a reasonable amount of reading on shipbuilding from that era.
The thing I like least about Aurora's shipbuilding model is the lack of a clear 'hull', and the resulting complications in things like retrofit and shipyard building.  For instance, if I build matched geo and grav survey ships and give them all the same components, except for the specific sensors, I think of them as being built on the same hull, and realistically they should be, and I should be able to build them at the same yard.  But I can't, because all components count when determining yard similarity.  Even though in reality, I should be able to just hand the shipyard whichever module I want and have them install it.
Armor is sometimes conflated with the hull, but it doesn't quite fit.  Yes, most modern designs use armor as part of their structure (modern in this case going back at least 100 years, and probably more like 150), but that doesn't cover the case of bolting iron onto a wooden ship.  (Which didn't happen as much as you'd think, actually.  For a long time, wood was considered better protection, and by the time metallurgy caught up, the nature of warships had changed enough that just cladding existing ships wasn't really viable.)
If I could think of a good way to get a 'hull' mechanism in and working, I'd have suggested it long ago.  It's unspeakably irritating to not be able to simply swap out the guns on my ship when the new ones are just improved versions of the old ones, and by all rights should fit in the same slots.

An entire wooden hull? No, I dont think that has happened. At least not unless you count stripping out everything but the hull and placing it in a new place. Replaced parts that were vital to structural integrity? Yes. I see if I can find the source for it, but it has been a while since I read it so it might take some time. I see now that I might have misread your comment a bit but bolting extra metal on the outside is a retrofit. And not just iron. Was not always done to increase protection, but it was done.

And has there not been a number of threads recently about how to get several different shipdesigns out of the same wharf? I think geo and grav was one of the examples given but dont quote me on that. 

Sword of the Stars 2 have a retrofit system kinda like you describe. Imo it was one of the few good things that game had.

[bean]

An entire wooden hull? No, I dont think that has happened. At least not unless you count stripping out everything but the hull and placing it in a new place. Replaced parts that were vital to structural integrity? Yes. I see if I can find the source for it, but it has been a while since I read it so it might take some time. I see now that I might have misread your comment a bit but bolting extra metal on the outside is a retrofit. And not just iron. Was not always done to increase protection, but it was done.

Oh, I'm sure there were some iron repairs done on wooden ships, but they were just that-repairs.  That sort of thing doesn't really show up in Aurora, due to the granularity of the ship model.  I can think of exactly one case (well, two) of a ship's basic hull being replaced, and that was Cassin and Downes after Pearl Harbor.  And the Aurora equivalent was scrapping a ship and reusing the components. 
Bolting armor on did occur, but my point was that we don't really have a good distinction between 'extra armor' and 'hull'. 

And has there not been a number of threads recently about how to get several different shipdesigns out of the same wharf? I think geo and grav was one of the examples given but dont quote me on that. 

I saw that thread, but decided not to mention it in my original post.  It's not quite the point I was trying to make.  Upgrading my destroyers when I discover advanced lasers shouldn't require a totally separate shipyard either.  Two ships where everything is the same size, shape, and general type (and which in real life would undoubtedly be built on the same hull) should be buildable at the same shipyard without the use of exploits like that.  (I don't use exploit in a derogatory sense.  It works, but it doesn't make sense.)

[jiduthie]

http://www.amazon.com/Avoid-Huge-Ships-John-Trimmer/dp/0870334336

[MarcAFK]

As I see it this argument is about large scale ships being overpowered compared to smaller ones right?
I'm starting a new game just to test this idea, but I really think rich is spot on about the logistics not supporting the idea.
Edit: there will be 3 phases to the experiment, the first is simple enough, 2 sets of ships will be built, each fleet equivalent, but one being comprised of ships 6 times the tonnage while the other will be 6 equal ships. Each fleet shall be designed with the same total RP and as close as possible mineral requirement. The ships will be analysed and weighed up, then pitted against each other.

Phase 2 is testing the logistical effect of long term buildup for large ships vs smaller ones.
Phase 3 will repeat phase 1 but also taking into account the results of phase 2.

[Iranon]

Commendable, but I'm not sure how applicable this is - I probably wouldn't simply scale my designs up or down.

If going for larger ships, I'd invest more tonnage into passive protction, possibly electronic warfare AND CIWS.
Tactical benefits of smaller ships - e.g. smaller sensor footprint and ways to exploit it, ability to surround and corner faster targets - are hard to standardise.
Similar for the logistics aspects (value of easily splitting your fleet. Relying on the jump gate network vs. jump ships would make a huge difference; similar for designed maintenance life)..

[IanD]

For the record re-increased armour protection you should look at the Italian Conte di Cavour and Andrea Doria Battleship classes. They were rebuilt into what amounted to totally new ships including upgraded armour protection. Even the RN Queen Elizabeth class had additional deck armour added and the Hood's armour was due to be upgraded had the war not intervened.

[alex_brunius]

@alex_brunius .
You are confusing things. 2 ships will require more armor space, than one ship with all their content, all other maintenance related stats are either the same or infavor of the large ship. And there is absolutely no difference in cost of designing the same components. See this thread. http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8244.msg85811

Actually it's you that are confusing things.

If you double the size of the ship you don't get any free armor, you just need less columns to cover all components with same thickness!

A consequence of this is that each component also gets protected by less actual armor boxes, and that you get less total boxes of armor that can absorb hits, unless you also make the armor thicker.

If my ship of size A have lets say 20 columns of 4 thickness armor ( 80 boxes ) and I make it size 2*A it now needs just 32 columns. This means that instead of 160 boxes to make it thickness 4, it just needs 128.

However that does not mean the ship can absorb twice as much punishment as two small ships! It still has the same thickness of armor, so the same weapon can get through it, and if it's hit by 2x as heavy fire it will be destroyed quicker since the fire becomes 60% more concentrated ( less then 2x as many armor columns so much bigger chance for 2 shots to hit the same place then if fire was spread equally on the two small ships ).

What I am saying is that if you want to keep at least twice as good protection on a twice as big ship 128 armor boxes is not good enough, you need to increase its thickness to 5 to match the combined amount of armor boxes on the 2 smaller ships ( 160 ), and this also means that the 2x bigger ship now has exactly 2x as much armor tonnage!


And please stop claiming maintenance of large ship is the same as small ones. You need absolutely massive maintenance facilities and shipyards with many millions of workers on your planets to support massive ships. This is a huge extra cost for huge ships.

Claiming large ships have the same maintenance, support and logistics needs as small just makes you look silly. This game is not all about the ship stats.


If this game had multiplayer and you could play competitively it's easy to prove how useless big ships are. The player aiming for small ships can quickly build up and refit his shipyards and has cranked out 50 ships and 10 times as much tonnage by the time the big shipyard has launched the first ship. And from there it becomes worse because now a new level of techs has been researched, and the player with big ships can either stick building obsolete stuff or send the only huge shipyard back to re-tooling for years, while the player with small ships can retool quickly and happily keep pumping out larger volumes of upgraded ships that hit the battlefield faster and with more tonnage.

And randomness also favors the smaller ships. All it takes is one unlucky hit and the big ship goes boom, while with 50+ small ships they are expendable, and magazine explosions change little or nothing since the ships are often lost on first salvo when under fire by bigger guns anyways.

[jem]

I saw that thread, but decided not to mention it in my original post.  It's not quite the point I was trying to make.  Upgrading my destroyers when I discover advanced lasers shouldn't require a totally separate shipyard either.  Two ships where everything is the same size, shape, and general type (and which in real life would undoubtedly be built on the same hull) should be buildable at the same shipyard without the use of exploits like that.  (I don't use exploit in a derogatory sense.  It works, but it doesn't make sense.)

I see it as setting up the facilities to build the components needed. So really easy to just swap out the turret but not quite as easy to make them on site (or having a number of factories retooled for the task, same thing really).

[Iranon]

For the record re-increased armour protection you should look at the Italian Conte di Cavour and Andrea Doria Battleship classes. They were rebuilt into what amounted to totally new ships including upgraded armour protection. Even the RN Queen Elizabeth class had additional deck armour added and the Hood's armour was due to be upgraded had the war not intervened.

Also, pretty much all old Japanese battleships (and former battlecruisers rebuilt as fast battleships) leading up to WW2.

[MarcAFK]

Well heres my initial very basic research, as expected there is no advantage to merely multiplying a ships systems to make a bigger ship. Obviously however a larger ship can do away with redundant systems to become cheaper, but then you're changing a variable, the smaller equal fleet has this redundancy and getting rid of it is a risk that the smaller fleet can take too, therefore it's not really an advantage. What I'm truely interested in is the effect persuing large ship sizes has on a empire.
Here's what I have, it's an attempt to replicate the first ship design in Sublight's battle for Barnards star.

Code: [Select]

Amon class Cruiser    11,050 tons     283 Crew     2057.76 BP      TCS 221  TH 352.5  EM 0
2126 km/s     Armour 2-44     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/55/0/0     Damage Control Rating 5     PPV 70
Maint Life 2.04 Years     MSP 582    AFR 195%    IFR 2.7%    1YR 187    5YR 2805    Max Repair 315 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months    Spare Berths 0   
Magazine 814   

235.2 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (2)    Power 235.2    Fuel Use 58.29%    Signature 176.4    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 500,000 Litres    Range 14.0 billion km   (76 days at full power)

Size 12 Missile Launcher (50% Reduction) (10)    Missile Size 12    Rate of Fire 600
Size 5 Missile Launcher (2)    Missile Size 5    Rate of Fire 50
Missile Fire Control FC84-R6 (2)     Range 84.9m km    Resolution 6
Missile Fire Control FC300-R75 (2)     Range 300.1m km    Resolution 75
Torpedo (42)  Speed: 27,600 km/s   End: 52.7m    Range: 87.2m km   WH: 9    Size: 5    TH: 138/82/41
Delivery Van (50)  Speed: 10,800 km/s   End: 454.4m    Range: 304.5m km   WH: 0    Size: 12    TH: 36/21/10

Active Search Sensor MR300-R75 (1)     GPS 23625     Range 300.1m km    Resolution 75
EM Detection Sensor EM5-55 (1)     Sensitivity 55     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  55m km

Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposesRP required for ship systems is 10634, 300,000 research points were already spent to reach magneto plasma level.
This next design is simply the same ship with 6 times as many systems.

Code: [Select]

Amon - x6 class Cruiser    66,150 tons     1667 Crew     12339.76 BP      TCS 1323  TH 2116.5  EM 0
2133 km/s     Armour 4-145     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/55/0/0     Damage Control Rating 30     PPV 420
Maint Life 2.03 Years     MSP 3498    AFR 1166%    IFR 16.2%    1YR 1135    5YR 17019    Max Repair 315 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months    Spare Berths 0   
Magazine 4884   

235.2 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (12)    Power 235.2    Fuel Use 58.29%    Signature 176.4    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 3,000,000 Litres    Range 14.0 billion km   (75 days at full power)

Size 12 Missile Launcher (50% Reduction) (60)    Missile Size 12    Rate of Fire 600
Size 5 Missile Launcher (12)    Missile Size 5    Rate of Fire 50
Missile Fire Control FC84-R6 (12)     Range 84.9m km    Resolution 6
Missile Fire Control FC300-R75 (12)     Range 300.1m km    Resolution 75
Torpedo (252)  Speed: 27,600 km/s   End: 52.7m    Range: 87.2m km   WH: 9    Size: 5    TH: 138/82/41
Delivery Van (302)  Speed: 10,800 km/s   End: 454.4m    Range: 304.5m km   WH: 0    Size: 12    TH: 36/21/10

Active Search Sensor MR300-R75 (6)     GPS 23625     Range 300.1m km    Resolution 75
EM Detection Sensor EM5-55 (6)     Sensitivity 55     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  55m km

Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposesIgnoring for a second the unneeded redundant systems, you'll notice this ship has 4 armour levels rather than 2, the Standard Amon has 88 armour, to have an equivalent 6 times the total would be 528 armour, which isn't quite reachable, level 4 gives this ship slightly more at 583. the cost is 12339.76 BP vs the others 2057.76 BP, which is 5.996 times the cost, very slightly cheaper. Now again 6 times larger:

Code: [Select]

Amon - x36 class Cruiser    395,650 tons     9982 Crew     73852.1598 BP      TCS 7913  TH 12700.5  EM 0
2140 km/s     Armour 7-480     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/55/0/0     Damage Control Rating 181     PPV 2520
Maint Life 2.04 Years     MSP 21116    AFR 6918%    IFR 96.1%    1YR 6741    5YR 101117    Max Repair 315 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months    Spare Berths 0   
Magazine 29304   

235.2 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (72)    Power 235.2    Fuel Use 58.29%    Signature 176.4    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 18,000,000 Litres    Range 14.0 billion km   (75 days at full power)

Size 12 Missile Launcher (50% Reduction) (360)    Missile Size 12    Rate of Fire 600
Size 5 Missile Launcher (72)    Missile Size 5    Rate of Fire 50
Missile Fire Control FC84-R6 (72)     Range 84.9m km    Resolution 6
Missile Fire Control FC300-R75 (72)     Range 300.1m km    Resolution 75
Torpedo (1512)  Speed: 27,600 km/s   End: 52.7m    Range: 87.2m km   WH: 9    Size: 5    TH: 138/82/41
Delivery Van (1812)  Speed: 10,800 km/s   End: 454.4m    Range: 304.5m km   WH: 0    Size: 12    TH: 36/21/10

Active Search Sensor MR300-R75 (36)     GPS 23625     Range 300.1m km    Resolution 75
EM Detection Sensor EM5-55 (36)     Sensitivity 55     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  55m km

Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Again this is almost 6 times as expensive, 5.98 times in fact, and has slightly less than 6 times the total armour, this time with 7 levels. It's obvious theres no clear advantage to the increasingly larger ships, speed, fuel use, armour, cost are almost exactly the same, only when you sacrifice redundancy and prune down the extra sensors or lower the armour, or maybe spend more research points on larger engines, then there's an advantage.
How well do the ships compare in combat though?
Oddly enough if I spawn a shipyard just large enough to construct each ship the construction time is as follows:
Amon: 54 months, Amonx6: 74 months, Amonx36: 78 months.
I just found a bug with shipyard build rate, construction time goes up as total shipyard size goes up, spawning a large shipyard slows down construction of all ships across every shipyard, I'm pretty sure that shouldn't happen.
If this is intended then it's a massive handicap for large ship construction, give me a few minutes to test it.

Edit: After deleting all shipyards and just creating a single yard for each class the build time is now as follows:
Amon: 1 slipway = 38 months, 36 slipways = 47 months.
Amonx6: 1 slipway = 64 months, 6 slipways = 47.5 months.
Amonx36 1 slipway = 68 months

Edit: Once you reach 127,000 naval tons total build rate starts going down across every shipyard.
You lose about 10% build rate for every increase of 127,000 tons of naval, and approxximately 1,270,000 commercial.