Author Topic: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions  (Read 345051 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Whitecold

  • Commander
  • *********
  • W
  • Posts: 330
  • Thanked: 88 times
Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #420 on: August 14, 2018, 01:25:35 PM »
Perhaps not a bad idea for the functionality of the damage reduction, actually. Instead of using max SP, use remaining SP as a function of ship size to determine damage stopped. Of course that changes shields from being a Big Ships tool to being something usable on all ships.

I guess I just generally like the idea of shields not competing with armor for defensive ability, but that there is some synergy between the two that makes it advantageous to put both on your ship.
That makes shields way too similar to armor. They would need a massive buff in efficiency to make up for the loss of protective ability at low strength, putting them in conflict with armor.
« Last Edit: August 14, 2018, 01:46:14 PM by Whitecold »
 

Offline the obelisk

  • Sub-Lieutenant
  • ******
  • t
  • Posts: 109
  • Thanked: 11 times
Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #421 on: August 14, 2018, 03:01:43 PM »
What if you combine the leaking shield concept with the way it works now?  Shields would deteriorate as they get hit, and as they deteriorate they absorb less and less damage per hit.
 

Offline Whitecold

  • Commander
  • *********
  • W
  • Posts: 330
  • Thanked: 88 times
Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #422 on: August 14, 2018, 03:27:19 PM »
What if you combine the leaking shield concept with the way it works now?  Shields would deteriorate as they get hit, and as they deteriorate they absorb less and less damage per hit.
I am afraid that makes them too similar to armor. Also, with leakage determined by FULL shield strength, HTK of shield generators become important. Getting a hit through that causes shock damage blowing up a shield generator would be the reason to mount redundant generators. Also, I'd rather have consistent leakers instead of a cliff edge where you either beat shield regen, and break the shield to nothing or do only superficial damage because the shield stays at close to full strength.
Having a higher rate of leakers but independent of current shield strength ensures the stronger party takes some damage as well, which is what the leakers should mostly accomplish.
 

Offline the obelisk

  • Sub-Lieutenant
  • ******
  • t
  • Posts: 109
  • Thanked: 11 times
Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #423 on: August 15, 2018, 04:51:19 PM »
What if you combine the leaking shield concept with the way it works now?  Shields would deteriorate as they get hit, and as they deteriorate they absorb less and less damage per hit.
I am afraid that makes them too similar to armor. Also, with leakage determined by FULL shield strength, HTK of shield generators become important. Getting a hit through that causes shock damage blowing up a shield generator would be the reason to mount redundant generators. Also, I'd rather have consistent leakers instead of a cliff edge where you either beat shield regen, and break the shield to nothing or do only superficial damage because the shield stays at close to full strength.
Having a higher rate of leakers but independent of current shield strength ensures the stronger party takes some damage as well, which is what the leakers should mostly accomplish.

I disagree that this makes it too much like armor.  As has been brought up in discussions, a shield covers the entire ship, how penetrating or widespread the weapon's damage pattern is doesn't matter to a shield, which means that weapons that operate one way against armor operate differently against shields that deteriorate, whereas with consistent leaky shields, it's just a dampener on the damage done to the armor.

Leaky shields makes HTK on shield generators matter, full stop.  Damage that leaks through and disables a shield generator would weaken or disable the shield.  Whether the shield also deteriorates doesn't really affect that.  Additionally, not being able to beat the shield regeneration only results in superficial damage if the shield is of a certain strength.  At that strength, a shield that doesn't deteriorate would ALSO result in superficial damage.

Being the stronger party does not automatically mean deteriorating shields would prevent anything more than superficial damage.  That is also determined, among other things, by how much damage the shield blocks.  In fact, if shields do not deteriorate, then depending on how strong they can be made, it could be very much possible to make a "leaky" shield that prevents anything other than superficial damage when facing a weaker opponent, with the enemy simply not able to put out enough damage to do more than dent your armor, and thus having no ability to damage the shield generator (other than mesons, mesons, which some NPR's very likely won't use, based on how Steve is designing them).  If the shield also deteriorates, however, that gives the weaker side the ability to still whittle down the shield until significant damage is passing through.
 

Offline QuakeIV

  • Registered
  • Commodore
  • **********
  • Posts: 759
  • Thanked: 168 times
Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #424 on: August 15, 2018, 10:24:33 PM »
On the one hand, I don't particularly agree with the notion shields should be 'balanced' with armor, why is that in any way desirable?  Things change as tech advances, is that not both expected and fine?  Why should late and early game ships be virtually identical in terms of tradeoffs and general design except with bigger numbers?

On the other, I do like the general concept.  You could have a much more complicated idea of shielding, for instance 'thickness', 'regeneration', and 'capacity' characteristics.  You have shield generators that keep the shields charged, which are very expensive and bulky, capacitors which are relatively cheap and light weight and determine the maximum amount of damage the shields can block without regeneration, and projectors that add layers to the shield and set a maximum amount of damage the shields can block before it punches through.

Perhaps the shields lose points equal to (ship mass / 1000) * thickness, so each projector leaks a certain amount of energy depending on ship size and adding more projectors means stronger shields that require more generators to keep them going even under nominal conditions.

The above rules for shield leakage are pretty made up and arbitrary and mainly meant to allow for the idea of generators as a separate component from the rest of the shielding apparatus so a generator gets blown up but the shields dont fail right away.  Overall this sounds kindof fun to me, if potentially being a bad idea to add in at this stage.
« Last Edit: August 15, 2018, 10:26:27 PM by QuakeIV »
 

Offline Zincat

  • Captain
  • **********
  • Z
  • Posts: 566
  • Thanked: 111 times
Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #425 on: August 16, 2018, 03:46:07 AM »
Frankly, I like shields as they are.
I completely dislike the notion of "leaky" shields. I can't think of a single sci-fi setting I liked that had "leaky" shields like that.

The concept of shields, to me, is that you have to go through them completely. The moment shields get "leaky", I'll stop using them completely. I am not interested in having some piece of garbage component over my ships that can get "leaky" and stop less and less damage over time. That is called taking a chance, and I don't with my ships.

The tradeoff with shields has always been that they give you less bang for your bucks compared to armor in terms of mass etc. BUT, unlike armor, they can be applied anywhere the damage goes. And they get better once you actually tech up a lot.
What's wrong with that? It makes perfect sense that you move from a "low tech" solution (armor) to a "very high tech solution" (shields) as your technology improves by leap and bounds.

Also, since when did Aurora need to make sure that fleets should be able to do some damage even against more technologically advanced fleets? If your tech is so far behind that you can't break through your enemy's shields, that's your fault for being behind. I don't get why THAT bothers people.

Space is NOT fair. It's cold, dark, and if you are weak you die. I see no reason why Aurora needs to ensure that both sides in an engagement take some damage. If you are the weak nation in a conflict, you die screaming.
« Last Edit: August 16, 2018, 03:50:35 AM by Zincat »
 
The following users thanked this post: MasonMac

Offline Rabid_Cog

  • Commander
  • *********
  • Posts: 306
  • Thanked: 28 times
Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #426 on: August 16, 2018, 07:07:34 AM »
For a ship of a fixed size with a fixed amount of HS devoted to defence, shields and armor compete for the same hull space. This is not a conditional, they do at all times. They both perform the same function, which is to say keeping your ship alive.

Any given HS of Armor's contribution to the effective number of hits we can take without dying or being crippled is a function of ship size (bigger is generally worse) and the the penetration of the enemy hits (so their damage profile) with shallower damage profiles being better and deeper damage profiles being worse. And of course a technology based armor efficiency constant.
Armour absorption = f(ShipSize,Penetration)*Tech(Armor)

Any given HS of Shield Generator's contribution to the effective number of hits we can take without dying or being crippled is a function of a combination of time between attacks and regeneration speed, but restricted to a certain minimum (shields have 0 time to regenerate) and a certain maximum (shields regenerate to full in between volleys), both based on a technology based efficiency variable.
Shield absorption = g(TimeBetweenAttacks,RegenerationSpeed)*Tech(Shield) with g() being constrained as mentioned above.

(Shipsize is fixed under our assumptions. RegenerationSpeed is also related to technology and can therefore be assumed to be fixed for a given technology level. Penetration is under our enemy's control, but also depends on combat distance, etc. Regardless, we can figure out a general damage profile we want the maximum defence against (2-3 penetration earlier on, with more later) and we know attacks will likely hit one of the two extremes for g(): too fast to regenerate (Beams/AMMs) or slow enough to allow full regen (ASMs).)

Note that neither value depends on either how much shield or armor you already have. That means that if you have 2 HS available for defence, and your calculations reveal that for the 1st HS, Armor is a better option, then for the 2nd HS armor will STILL be a better option since none of the factors changed. If anything, shield synergizes slightly with itself.

In summary, it doesnt actually matter which one of these win in any given situation. The point is that ONE OF THEM WINS. And either Shield Absorption is always better, or Armor Absorption is always better and it only depends on your tech level.

The reason "Leaky shield" overcomes this, is it makes the value of armor related to the number of shield layers you have (penetration becomes penetration - shield layers) and shield value related to the amount of armor you have (your shield only has value if you dont DIE before it is fully depleted). The optimal solution is therefore moved away from the extremes, towards the centre of a combination of shields and armor for defence which, and this is purely my opinion and you are welcome to disagree, I feel leads to more interesting gameplay decisions.



I have my own subforum now!
Shameless plug for my own Aurora story game:
5.6 part: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,4988.0.html
6.2 part: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,5906.0.html

Feel free to post comments!
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,5452.0.html
 
The following users thanked this post: JacenHan

Offline wedgebert

  • Ace Wiki Contributor
  • Warrant Officer, Class 1
  • ****
  • w
  • Posts: 87
  • Thanked: 33 times
Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #427 on: August 16, 2018, 05:18:09 PM »
Why not just have two types of shield generators? The current ones and ones that have a higher strength but let some damage leak through?
 

Offline QuakeIV

  • Registered
  • Commodore
  • **********
  • Posts: 759
  • Thanked: 168 times
Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #428 on: August 16, 2018, 09:15:08 PM »
I kind of think people threatening to never use the different shield concept because they 'dont take chances' shouldn't really be a huge factor in whether to make them that way or not.  If they actually aren't worthwhile steve could just make them cheaper in mass and resouces to balance them.
« Last Edit: August 16, 2018, 09:18:00 PM by QuakeIV »
 

Offline Whitecold

  • Commander
  • *********
  • W
  • Posts: 330
  • Thanked: 88 times
Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #429 on: August 16, 2018, 11:38:58 PM »
Why not just have two types of shield generators? The current ones and ones that have a higher strength but let some damage leak through?
The buffering effect of reducing strikes means the leaky shields will be more survivable. 10 half strength hits do much less damage to armor than 5 full strength ones in armor penetration.
You take more armor damage early on in an engagement, but your shields last longer, and each individual hit is weaker, so your armor gets sandblasted at first. So if your ship has some armor to soak up the leakage, the leaky ones are strictly superior.
 

Offline QuakeIV

  • Registered
  • Commodore
  • **********
  • Posts: 759
  • Thanked: 168 times
Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #430 on: August 16, 2018, 11:45:41 PM »
Thats also a good point.
 

Offline Peroox

  • Petty Officer
  • **
  • P
  • Posts: 18
Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #431 on: August 17, 2018, 04:41:22 AM »
Still we need both.  If someone want to use shielded fighter/FAC he rather choose current one.  More choice = more interesting game.  Thing is to make both choice viable and easy to do. 
 

Offline chrislocke2000

  • Captain
  • **********
  • c
  • Posts: 544
  • Thanked: 39 times
Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #432 on: August 17, 2018, 06:56:28 AM »
Like the idea of a mix of shields but would want to make sure there is no simple optimal solution so that every race just moves to that position as it takes a lot of the diversity out of the game and removes some of the scope to have different flavours of AI / race type. I think pure armour should be just as feasible as pure shields or a mix of both in much the same way you don't want a single weapon system dominating the game.
 

Offline TMaekler

  • Vice Admiral
  • **********
  • Posts: 1112
  • Thanked: 298 times
Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #433 on: August 18, 2018, 07:20:31 AM »
What do you think about the ability to equip fighters with different payload? Like you can do in real life. So one would be able to us a plane depending on the situation it would be needed for..
 

Offline Person012345

  • Captain
  • **********
  • Posts: 539
  • Thanked: 29 times
Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #434 on: August 18, 2018, 09:03:33 AM »
What do you think about the ability to equip fighters with different payload? Like you can do in real life. So one would be able to us a plane depending on the situation it would be needed for..

As far as I am aware,this is the current thinking on fighters in relation to ground combat (where different roles are relevant): http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=9792.msg106084#msg106084

Unless I've missed something this is still the idea for ground support roles. If you mean being able to swap out the missile launchers on a fighter for lasers or whatever on a whim then that is something else (not something I'd be in favour of personally).