marines and morale

[vonduus (OP)]

I am just about to attack my evil neighbor. For that purpose I have assembled a fleet on his doorstep, ie. the jump point leading to his system. Together with the fleet is a squadron of 4 assault shuttles, each holding 1 Marine Company, with orders to attack and seize any enemy ship that looses its engines during the battle.

They have all just arrived after a 9 days voyage. And now I get this message:

"Due to the period of time that 112th Marine Company has been held in a combat-ready state on board Harley 002, its morale has fallen to 85".

WTF?!? Nine days, and they are already complaining; has marines become some sort of sissies or what? It is not that they have sat and waited for ages or anything, I took special care to make sure that embarking the marines was the very last thing I did before the fleet was sent on its way. They all have officers, the next to last thing I did was making sure that everybody that was going to join the battle had the proper officers.

Okay, there is a possibility that I did something wrong. Here is the shuttle design:

Code: [Select]

Harley class Assault Shuttle    1,000 tons     21 Crew     170.8 BP      TCS 20  TH 160  EM 0
8000 km/s     Armour 1-8     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Maint Life 11.2 Years     MSP 107    AFR 8%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 2    5YR 23    Max Repair 40 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 3    
Drop Capacity: 1 Company    

80 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (2)    Power 80    Fuel Use 57%    Signature 80    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 200,000 Litres    Range 63.2 billion km   (91 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Did I forget anything?

If not, and if this behavior on the part of the marines are wad, meant to force me to use my Troop Transports and do the final embarking in open space close to the battlefield, then my question is:

How long time will a marine stay in an assault shuttle before he gets homesick?

edit: Another complication now is that the marines will not disembark. I returned them to Earth to get them out of the shuttles and on board my Troop Transports, and now I get these messages:

"Cannot unload 110th Marine Company as it is prepped for a combat drop.

"AST Assault Shuttle TG has failed to UnloadAll Ground Units from Transport Bay Earth. Any additional order will be on hold etc."

They are complaining over lack of comfy quarters, but nonetheless they refuse to leave the ship. I guess I will have to combat drop them on Earth then. Hopefully they don't break anything in the process. Sissies.

[Charlie Beeler]

Working as designed.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,1680.0.html

[vonduus (OP)]

Working as designed.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,1680.0.html

Ah, thanks for the link, I knew it was here somewhere, but couldn't find it. It seems morale starts dropping after a week. So be it. 

I did a combat drop on Earth, without breaking anything, and right now they are embarking on a Troop Transport. For next time I will design an Assault Carrier with both troop transport bays for the marines and hangar space for the assault shuttles.

But I still think they are a bunch of sissies. Okay, if they manage to actually capture some enemy ships I will take back my words and institute an Assault Medal or something.

[Bgreman]

For next time I will design an Assault Carrier with both troop transport bays for the marines and hangar space for the assault shuttles.

Note if you do this that you should separate your assault shuttles into on TG per shuttle, and set the orders for each one to load its designated drop unit individually.  If you try to just put all your shuttles in one TG, you can only load units sequentially, which will take much longer than if they are in separate TGs with parallel load orders.  This can be a big issue if you carry lots of units on your troop transports and have a small cargo handling multiplier.  Personally, I would like to see the drop module loading mechanism changed to automatically load in parallel.

[Nathan_]

But I still think they are a bunch of sissies. Okay, if they manage to actually capture some enemy ships I will take back my words and institute an Assault Medal or something.

The assault shuttle they are in is woefully slow, and you'll have to do severe damage to an enemy target to not get your marines smeared all over the hull of an enemy ship on an attempted boarding.

[vonduus (OP)]

Note if you do this that you should separate your assault shuttles into on TG per shuttle, and set the orders for each one to load its designated drop unit individually.  If you try to just put all your shuttles in one TG, you can only load units sequentially, which will take much longer than if they are in separate TGs with parallel load orders.  This can be a big issue if you carry lots of units on your troop transports and have a small cargo handling multiplier.  Personally, I would like to see the drop module loading mechanism changed to automatically load in parallel.

Thanks for the advice, it was my intention to make one big ship that could carry a full battalion plus shuttles in one go, but now I'll make four smaller ones instead.

The assault shuttle they are in is woefully slow, and you'll have to do severe damage to an enemy target to not get your marines smeared all over the hull of an enemy ship on an attempted boarding.

Yes, I know, it is an old design. Actually I only took them along because they were sitting idle on my home planet. It is quite easy to kill the engines of my current enemy, so when he is down to running perhaps 1000 km/s or slower, I believe the marines have a fair chance of a successful boarding.

[Conscript Gary]

Eight times the speed still leaves you with a possible casualty rate of 12-120% on the landing alone.
Favor fortunes the bold, of course, but doesn't hurt to check the numbers

[vonduus (OP)]

Favor fortunes the bold

Exactly!!!   

No, of course you are right. I did a successful boarding operation with this shuttle type some game years ago, against a lame duck, but I have also seen what happens if the enemy ship is too fast for the shuttle. They get smeared out on the enemy ships hull, as Nathan puts it.

This is my first real game of Aurora, and because I am still so stupid Aurora-wise I have had a lot of delays, due to my forgetting all kinds of stuff. Like, all engines in my Battle Fleet are up to date, except in my Assault Shuttles. ALL my tenders and colliers are loaded and ready at the jump gate, but I forgot to bring along some tankers. And so on.

Anyway, I loaded the marines on board a Troop Transport, and now they sit at the jump gate, next to the Assault Shuttles. I managed to immobilize an enemy ship (speed around 200 km/s), but before I could load the marines and try to board it, one of my frigates killed it. Because I forgot to tell my ships to cease firing  .

[strych90]

Along the same lines of this post, I've got a question. I've never tried boarding enemy ships. What are the advantages of capturing enemy ships?

[Nathan_]

You get the ship, its design specs, and the ability to scrap it and recover all of its components intact for disassembly or use.

[strych90]

You get the ship, its design specs, and the ability to scrap it and recover all of its components intact for disassembly or use.

Oh that's cool. Definitely need to try that then!

[vonduus (OP)]

I captured a geo-survey ship of the Malcanthet class, from a very primitive race, so I did not get any new technologies. I got the blueprint of the ship, so now I can build it, if I want to. But my ships are better. When I scrapped the captured ship, I got some minerals and a nice 3750t jump drive, which for some reason couldn't be put into any new designs, although it showed up in my stockpile. So I scrapped that too.

In the end, all I got was a useless blueprint and some minerals.

This is what I myself have experienced. But I am given to understand from other posts, that if you capture a ship that uses more advanced techs than those you've got already, then you may get some free research in some way.

I also am given to believe that you can get free research if you scrounge wrecks from a technologically advanced race. Not always, there is dice involved, I think.

[strych90]

so capturing a spoiler ship would probably be a good thing, if its possible

[Steve Walmsley]

I captured a geo-survey ship of the Malcanthet class, from a very primitive race, so I did not get any new technologies. I got the blueprint of the ship, so now I can build it, if I want to. But my ships are better. When I scrapped the captured ship, I got some minerals and a nice 3750t jump drive, which for some reason couldn't be put into any new designs, although it showed up in my stockpile. So I scrapped that too.

In the end, all I got was a useless blueprint and some minerals.

This is what I myself have experienced. But I am given to understand from other posts, that if you capture a ship that uses more advanced techs than those you've got already, then you may get some free research in some way.

I also am given to believe that you can get free research if you scrounge wrecks from a technologically advanced race. Not always, there is dice involved, I think.

You have to design a ship that includes the alien component rather than your own equivalent if you want to build a ship that includes that component. Uncheck the "Own Tech Only" checkbox on the Class Design window.

Steve

[vonduus (OP)]

You have to design a ship that includes the alien component rather than your own equivalent if you want to build a ship that includes that component. Uncheck the "Own Tech Only" checkbox on the Class Design window.

Steve

Ah, thanks for the information. I had "Own Tech Only" on. I just scrounged a wreck and got me an ECM that is two levels ahead of my current tech, so I am looking forward to putting it on one of my armored sensor ships . I also got some research points from the same wreck  .

Steve, this is a great game. I am having so good a time, that I find it very difficult to shut down this world of mine in order to start a new one in 6.21 - I don't like using SM or doing quick OOBs, as I prefer to start from conventional and do it the hard way, making my mistakes and fixing them or living with them, and this takes a loooong time.

Can we expect a change in the database soon? Because if so, then I will stay in this world until then .