C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions

[Father Tim]

I still think the solution to this problem is "Bring missiles"

This is not the solution; this is the problem I'm trying to fix.  I'm not interested in playing an Aurora where the 'only way' is missile fleets, long-range fighter strikes, and giant sensors.  That is not my fiction.

[QuakeIV]

I think at this point pretty much everyone is like 'but how does this solve my particular problem' which is resulting in a pretty obvious condition of every concept being rejected.  I do agree however that the engine boosting stuff discussed so far doesn't do a whole lot for the specific scenario of beam ships vs missile ships (aside from probably helping their ability to flee for their lives).  I think whats mostly come up so far is trying to blur the effect of tech level a little bit, in particular trying to mitigate wholesale slaughter where one fleet doing 4020 km/s with slightly longer range beams totally annihilates the one doing 4000km/s.

[QuakeIV]

In all seriousness can we just say that aurora TN beams are FTL and therefore can have range beyond the distance light can travel in 5 second increments?  The sensors are already FTL, so there is clearly some way to physically interact with stuff at FTL speeds.

The 5 second limit isn't because of light speed - that is just the convenient technobabble.

The real reason is that longer-range beams would unbalance the game. Currently, if you are out-ranged in a beam conflict, you at least have the chance to build faster ships and close the range. You'll take damage, but it isn't game over. If beam ranges become much longer, then speed becomes irrelevant and longest range wins every time.

This is where the missile vs beam combat idea last came up for me.  Maybe one way to mitigate beam range in general is to make it possible to shoot at a target from more or less any range, you just get a steadily diminishing chance to hit.  Assuming it was a relatively gentle curve (this part in particular is so vague its pretty far from ever being implemented, but may as well put it out there for now) you might be able to have a scenario where the lower tech side is still shooting back and is scoring damage, the attacking side is just generally getting the better of it because they have longer range beams.  That might then make it possible to pretty significantly expand the range of beam combat without literally taking 0 damage from the lower tech side.  I'll start working on some graphs to try to lay out a reasonable mathematical argument for how exactly that could work out.

[Profugo Barbatus]

If the goal is purely "I want beam armed ships at a minor but not crippling tech disadvantage to have an option when outranged and outsped", is there a reason that using regular engine boost in the design phase hasn't been discussed? Its always been a consideration in Aurora to bring combat capability to mitigate your potential weaknesses, what is to prevent you from taking your all beam forces, and adding a carrier or two to the fleet that hold max boosted FAC's or Fighters? These can work and give you a chance to fight back even if the enemy has a speed advantage against your standard forces, you just pay a significant fuel premium, and likely lose some of these ships as you blitz down the enemy formation.

Maybe I'm just failing to understand why this is a big problem that needs to be solved, when a massive part of Aurora has always been designing new ships to counter the enemy, or designing in advance to combat your known weaknesses. This is feeling like a solution to an extremely niche, contrived problem of multiple 'what if' scenarios stacking atop of each other.

I really like the idea that missiles with thermal sensors are more likely to damage engines than other systems, and that missiles with EM sensors are more likely to damage sensors, fire controls and shield generators than other systems.  It provides a reason to use sensor-equipped missiles other than conservation of ammo.

This is an idea I could get behind, could also add value to thermal reduced engines once the ship has been engaged, since its relative engine to ship thermal difference should be lower. Something could probably do the same for the EM ones, ECCM, maybe cloaking too?

[QuakeIV]

Mainly because of the volatility of outcome.  The fact that FACs can be built has very little to do with it, because at the end of the day if those FACs are fighting something that outranges them and even only slightly outspeeds them then they will still get annihilated with no risk to their enemy.  The sheer inelasticity of that outcome is kindof the problem, and I do agree with others that its rather a big one.  I once wiped out an entire enemy fleet of like 100 ships with one trapped beam armed destroyer that was kiting them.  Strictly I took some casualties, but that was because the enemy fired missiles (they massively overkilled a jump gate constructor, and then destroyed one of the two accompanying destroyers).  Once they ran out of missiles they had literally a 0% chance of either destroying the remaining ship or running away.  The AI did eventually try to flee but I just switched to pursuing them instead and wiped them out to the last ship, which turned out to be more or less that entire NPRs space navy.  The sheer absurdity of that is not a good gameplay aspect in my opinion, there was absolutely no risk whatsoever and I wasn't even all that much faster than them to my recollection.  The fact that the beams would probably break down eventually in the current version is only a minor mitigation, because being able to fire from complete safety until your lasers literally break down and run out of parts is still very excessive (in my opinion).

Another way of putting it, as soon as that NPR was caught out against even one destroyer the game was over.  There was no designing for them, there was no anything.  Their fleet didn't even make it back to their main planet to get more missiles before it was completely destroyed.  The flight would have taken several hours, they did not have several hours.

extra edit:

[Desdinova]

Why is this considered a problem? If you have a speed and range advantage in a gunfight, you can destroy the enemy at your leisure. This is perfectly realistic and logical, and happened in history - an example would be the destruction of the German squadron at the battle of the Falklands in WWI.

[QuakeIV]

Yeah but its not like the entire british grand fleet was killed by one kitey boy in a single day at any point, nor was there any risk of that ever happening like that.  I'm not arguing against lower tech enemies being massacred wholesale, I'm fine with that, but the fact that its so inelastic in the technical sense of the word inelastic, that is to say its pretty much going to be one side winning by a landslide in almost every circumstance, including ones where the ships are almost identical, is a really seirous problem.

e:  What I mean to say is, one small ship wiping out a really massive amount of enemy tonnage should probably be a matter of pretty significant technical edge, not literally a couple hundred km/s of extra speed plus a spinal beam that happens to outrange anything they have but is otherwise the same tech.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Mainly because of the volatility of outcome.  The fact that FACs can be built has very little to do with it, because at the end of the day if those FACs are fighting something that outranges them and even only slightly outspeeds them then they will still get annihilated with no risk to their enemy.  The sheer inelasticity of that outcome is kindof the problem, and I do agree its rather a big one.  I once wiped out an entire enemy fleet of like 100 ships with one trapped beam armed destroyer that was kiting them.  Strictly I took some casualties, but that was because the enemy fired missiles (they massively overkilled a jump gate constructor, and then destroyed one of the two accompanying destroyers).  Once they ran out of missiles they had literally a 0% chance of either destroying the remaining ship or running away.  The AI did eventually try to flee but I just switched to pursuing them instead and wiped them out to the last ship, which turned out to be more or less that entire NPRs space navy.  The sheer absurdity of that is not a good gameplay aspect in my opinion, there was absolutely no risk whatsoever and I wasn't even all that much faster than them to my recollection.  The fact that the beams would probably break down eventually in the current version is only a minor mitigation, because being able to fire from complete safety until your lasers literally break down and run out of parts is still very excessive (in my opinion).

Another way of putting it, as soon as that NPR was caught out against even one destroyer the game was over.  There was no designing for them, there was no anything.  Their fleet didn't even make it back to their main planet to get more missiles before it was completely destroyed.  The flight would have taken several hours, they did not have several hours.

I agree that this is the main problem that needs to be looked at. The fact that you can use to attack someone with impunity with a rather small advantage in beam and speed build. The border between when you can attack with impunity or the weaker side at least do some damage needs to be bigger. Having faster speed is still really strong as you can retreat from a fight at any time, if you also have just slightly better range you can kill almost any number of enemy ships.

Now... there are some minor tricks you can do with dividing up an inferior fleet in several parts and use escort mechanic to fore the distance to some extent, but that usually take a very strong fleet to do damage to an enemy that have a tiny bit if speed and range advantage.

I would like if an inferior beam fleet at least could do some damage back at a reasonable rate. Some mechanic that at least forces two fleet to close to a place where both can use their beam weapons.

Now, I do believe that you probably should need to have some beam defence in a fleet, even if missiles are the primary weapon. If one is caught with no missiles left and have no beam weapons available (or very short ranged ones) then you should probably be destroyed if caught in beam range combat eventually. A boost technology might help with this scenario. The question is then if you actually need beam weapons much at all on ships rather than good engines and the ability to boost away when missiles are gone. The AI should at least be better at building balanced fleets and have some beam weapons present in most fleets.

But having every ship that is just a bit slower and a bit shorter ranged weapon incapable to strike back is not that fun or exciting. I would like to see beam ships actually fire at each other outside having the same maximum range (where initiative can be another really huge factor) or each side the upper hand in either range or speed.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Why is this considered a problem? If you have a speed and range advantage in a gunfight, you can destroy the enemy at your leisure. This is perfectly realistic and logical, and happened in history - an example would be the destruction of the German squadron at the battle of the Falklands in WWI.

But even in WWI and II ship fights there would be some danger of enemy shells hitting some unarmoured part of a ship or just freak accidents happen to a ship that appear superior... this happened during both WWI and II ship engagements. During the fight you describe then both sides ship were under fire and the British sustained hits even if they were minor.

When playing Rule the Waves 2 I had a destroyer lobbing a 5" shell right into the torpedo tube of a 12000t battle cruiser as one example... it was a freak action shot but an epic one. It did not destroy the battlecruiser but it was doomed after that shot...  ...now this could as well have been a ship with slower speed than the battle cruiser as in WWI you always had to come under some form of fire to attack someone, even against inferior ranged weapons, the chance of damage to you just were allot less than to them. You just could not sit at extreme range as the accuracy was too bad and ammunition was finite.

[Steve Walmsley]

I had been meaning to ask this early, how do sub fleets work with the new organization commands?  Do sub fleets have to be part of their parent fleet to get a naval command bonus?  How far do sub fleets nest?

Sub-fleets are purely organizational. You can nest as deep as you want. All sub-fleets benefit from command bonuses that apply to the parent fleet.

[Garfunkel]

Another way of putting it, as soon as that NPR was caught out against even one destroyer the game was over.  There was no designing for them, there was no anything.  Their fleet didn't even make it back to their main planet to get more missiles before it was completely destroyed.  The flight would have taken several hours, they did not have several hours.

That problem has already been fixed for C# we don't need another fix. Steve has confirmed that with the new AI functionality, the NPR battle fleets will be better balanced and the NPR will understand when the run quicker. Plus, as you yourself said, the new weapon breakage rule. There shouldn't be a situation where the NPR attacks you with 100 missile ships. The problem was never beams themselves, it was an AI problem.

And I would disagree that the system even in VB6 is inelastic. Your given example, sure. But because there are so many possibilities for weapon range and ship speed combinations, this problem isn't one that would happen routinely unless the player intentionally builds their fleets to trap themselves.

[Steve Walmsley]

The discussion seems to be coming down to answering the question: Is it good for the game that a small force that is slightly faster and has longer-range weapons can completely destroy a much larger force?

In my recent campaign update for example, a damaged Necron destroyer could potentially have wiped out the entire Expeditionary Fleet if that fleet did not have either torpedoes or fighters. However, in this case they did have both torpedoes and fighters, because I knew from previous tactical intelligence that the enemy ships were faster and had longer-ranged weapons. If I did not have those capabilities, then I would not have sent the fleet into the system in the first place.

Earlier in the campaign, I found myself in exactly that situation and lost a fleet because I couldn't get escape. In that case however, I was unprepared, had minimal tactical intelligence and was surprised by an opponent with a significant tech advantage. After that point I was extremely wary about placing my forces in a similar situation and conducted operations accordingly. I have been working on ships and technology to counter the Tyranid advantages so I can go back into combat with some chance of success.

So in general, I think if you find yourself in a bad situation in deep space against a higher tech opponent with longer-ranged weapons, you probably should be in serious trouble. However, lets look at an extreme situation. A single small ship vs a very large opposing force. Unless the tech advantage is very large, the small ship will be firing at extreme range and therefore might still struggle to overcome the shield recharge rate of the large force. Also, the large force can split up, either for most of them to escape or to attempt to surround the faster opponent.

In summary, I think there are options for a weaker, lower tech race to fight a higher tech, faster race. That is one of the challenges of the game.

Finally, having argued the above, I think there might be an option we haven't considered so far; the equivalent of 'making smoke'. Perhaps there should be some form of crude ECM that makes a ship harder to hit, but also affects its own weapons. In this situation, the lower tech force might be able to 'obscure' itself sufficiently to make it difficult for a small, higher tech force to obtain a long-range firing solution. The higher tech force would either have to move closer to gain a better firing solution, opening itself up to counter-attack if the 'smoke' is turned off, or be content with shadowing the enemy. This capability would only be useful in that type of situation and only useful for the lower tech force. My concern would how the AI handles this, but I think I could code it.

[Hazard]

Modern day 'smoke' would have to be pretty hightech; it not only needs to obscure the visual light spectrum, it also needs to obscure radar rangefinding. And in Aurora? Aiming isn't done by looking down the sights at the target, distances are far too great, so it's all done by long range sensors.

Which makes the question of 'how to display ECM' kinda difficult. There are three kinds of sensors in Aurora; thermal passive, electromagnetic passive, and electromagnetic active, some technobabble applied to make them not suffer light-lag. Electromagnetic active is the only aiming system used by beam weapons, and missiles without their own sensor package are pretty clearly semi-actively guided, that is to say that they follow the sensor return from the missile fire control system to their target (otherwise they wouldn't be wired to explode due to loose weapon risk when the MFC loses target lock), and missiles with their own sensor package hunt enemy ships through them instead and do so infallibly (which is quite a trick, as real life has yet to figure out how to make guided munitions not explode your own ships, aircraft, tanks and everything else when they get pointed that way. A self guiding torpedo or missile has no friends).

Defeating all these sensor types at once is difficult, but the technobabble for why they suffer no light-lag could actually provide us a system as to how that could happen. The 'smoke generator' system drags the ship in question or the electromagnetic spectrum out of the aether in such a way that all sensor systems suffer from light lag. On the one side, it's a massive 'I'm here' marker due to how it interacts with the aether and as any player of World of Warships can tell you that tends to attract torpedoes. On the other side, good luck actually hitting a target without absolutely saturating the place with gunfire. And from the inside, good luck seeing out of it, you are going to need somebody whose view is not obscured by the smoke telling you where your shots are landing.

It would be best if this took more than just some hullsize and a few more tons of material though, it's probably a system that should be eating MSP or fuel to function. Though it's fair to note that it's basically a really low quality stealth system.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Modern day 'smoke' would have to be pretty hightech; it not only needs to obscure the visual light spectrum, it also needs to obscure radar rangefinding. And in Aurora? Aiming isn't done by looking down the sights at the target, distances are far too great, so it's all done by long range sensors.

Which makes the question of 'how to display ECM' kinda difficult. There are three kinds of sensors in Aurora; thermal passive, electromagnetic passive, and electromagnetic active, some technobabble applied to make them not suffer light-lag. Electromagnetic active is the only aiming system used by beam weapons, and missiles without their own sensor package are pretty clearly semi-actively guided, that is to say that they follow the sensor return from the missile fire control system to their target (otherwise they wouldn't be wired to explode due to loose weapon risk when the MFC loses target lock), and missiles with their own sensor package hunt enemy ships through them instead and do so infallibly (which is quite a trick, as real life has yet to figure out how to make guided munitions not explode your own ships, aircraft, tanks and everything else when they get pointed that way. A self guiding torpedo or missile has no friends).

Defeating all these sensor types at once is difficult, but the technobabble for why they suffer no light-lag could actually provide us a system as to how that could happen. The 'smoke generator' system drags the ship in question or the electromagnetic spectrum out of the aether in such a way that all sensor systems suffer from light lag. On the one side, it's a massive 'I'm here' marker due to how it interacts with the aether and as any player of World of Warships can tell you that tends to attract torpedoes. On the other side, good luck actually hitting a target without absolutely saturating the place with gunfire. And from the inside, good luck seeing out of it, you are going to need somebody whose view is not obscured by the smoke telling you where your shots are landing.

It would be best if this took more than just some hullsize and a few more tons of material though, it's probably a system that should be eating MSP or fuel to function. Though it's fair to note that it's basically a really low quality stealth system.

I think you can make up ANY techno babble to fit the narrative, here is another one...

Fire-controls are calculating Eather waves which is way more precise and faster than regular EM range finder systems. Now the "smoke" is some spacial disturbance active sensors which make ripples in the Eather and much harder to fix a ships exact position unless you move closer to cut through the noise. Likewise it make your own range finder systems act crazy as well. Might even effect any active sensors in use within a certain distance of the task-force as well, just for kicks.

You basically can make up any story you wish to make any mechanic internally consistent as everything in the game are make believe anyway...

[Jorgen_CAB]

The discussion seems to be coming down to answering the question: Is it good for the game that a small force that is slightly faster and has longer-range weapons can completely destroy a much larger force?

In my recent campaign update for example, a damaged Necron destroyer could potentially have wiped out the entire Expeditionary Fleet if that fleet did not have either torpedoes or fighters. However, in this case they did have both torpedoes and fighters, because I knew from previous tactical intelligence that the enemy ships were faster and had longer-ranged weapons. If I did not have those capabilities, then I would not have sent the fleet into the system in the first place.

Earlier in the campaign, I found myself in exactly that situation and lost a fleet because I couldn't get escape. In that case however, I was unprepared, had minimal tactical intelligence and was surprised by an opponent with a significant tech advantage. After that point I was extremely wary about placing my forces in a similar situation and conducted operations accordingly. I have been working on ships and technology to counter the Tyranid advantages so I can go back into combat with some chance of success.

So in general, I think if you find yourself in a bad situation in deep space against a higher tech opponent with longer-ranged weapons, you probably should be in serious trouble. However, lets look at an extreme situation. A single small ship vs a very large opposing force. Unless the tech advantage is very large, the small ship will be firing at extreme range and therefore might still struggle to overcome the shield recharge rate of the large force. Also, the large force can split up, either for most of them to escape or to attempt to surround the faster opponent.

In summary, I think there are options for a weaker, lower tech race to fight a higher tech, faster race. That is one of the challenges of the game.

Finally, having argued the above, I think there might be an option we haven't considered so far; the equivalent of 'making smoke'. Perhaps there should be some form of crude ECM that makes a ship harder to hit, but also affects its own weapons. In this situation, the lower tech force might be able to 'obscure' itself sufficiently to make it difficult for a small, higher tech force to obtain a long-range firing solution. The higher tech force would either have to move closer to gain a better firing solution, opening itself up to counter-attack if the 'smoke' is turned off, or be content with shadowing the enemy. This capability would only be useful in that type of situation and only useful for the lower tech force. My concern would how the AI handles this, but I think I could code it.

This sort of mirror my feeling as well... the problem is mainly when I play multi-factions and technologies are fairly similar. I don't want one faction that just managed to get a better ranged fire-control to dominate beam combat quite literally. The main issue is basically to blur the line a bit and make fire-power a part of the the question as well as range and speed. Having a better speed and range is already in and of itself a huge advantage even if a weaker side could force the other into engagement, but it might mean that the one with better speed and range might need to retreat rather than engage at some time as the enemy has too much strength present, such as one destroyer against four destroyers.

Missiles are obviously the first solution to most problems.

I assume that this "smoke" would only effect the ship it is on and the one targeting it. This would definitely favour smaller ships or if you have more ships of lower tech perhaps. In any way it would favour the most numerous enemy. So lets say you use smoke and enemies have half range to hit you while you have half range hitting them in return.

I think that perhaps it should be a task-force thing to avoid micro management in that case, so you don't switch smoke on and off per ship depending on which ship is targeted, but that might be odd to handle it that way.

An order to a task-force to automatically use or not use smoke at specific distances would then be good so you don't have to manually switch them on and off.

Just some ideas...

The smoke idea also might make immobile defence platforms a bit more viable for defending points in space with beam weapons and not just missiles.