Gwyn's Adventures in Aurora

[Gwyn ap Nud (OP)]

So, I'm gonna use this thread to bounce ideas on ship designs off the world.     I like experimenting with interesting thoughts.     For example, right now I got the idea of, for role-play purposes, geo-surveying most of Sol system by long-ranged missile launched from PDC on Earth.     So my question is, if my missile has the range, do I need to have fire-control with long range as well to shoot a planet or known body?

edit: also, y'know what would be great? A separated ship-builder that would allow me to just get the stats of a ship, maybe online, or just with a modifiable interface that works on computers with a shorter screen.    My laptop won't run Aurora, but I would love to design ships without having to load up all the rest of aurora, or design ships for techs I don't have yet.   

2nd edit, a day later: So after building a mock PDC with the most basic of fire controls, it doesn't appear that I can't target Luna, so it appears that I do need to be in Fire Control range.   \

3rd edit, half a day later: Even with fire control reaching, I can't appear to target bodies with missiles. . .  I guess how ship-deployed geo-probes work is actually going to the planet, then deploying the probe without engines, so it starts off on the planet? Can't shoot it from a distance at the planet? That's a shame. . . 

[Starmantle]

I love both ideas!

As for the PDC fire controls, if it is needed, I'd imagine the resolution could be arbitrarily huge, so not that costly. 

I don't have the game open, but I think the process of firing at a system body is a little counter-intuitive. 

[Cocyte]

As I'm using a lot of probes missiles for quite a long time, I can tell you that...

- The fire control size is not important at all : the smallest you can build is far enough.

- You cannot indeed directly target a body. But you can target a WP that you convenientely set on the body you plan to survey. In the system map, click on the planetoid you want to survey to "select" it, then click "add waypoint on last position" (or something like that - I cannot run Aurora on this crappy laptop :s)

- You will need some well designed 2-stages missiles for this purpose. The first stage will be the launch vehicle, with only fuel and engine, and the second stage an engineless buoy with the sensor. Be careful to set the separation distance at 0 instead of the default 200,000 km

- Be patient. Very patient. Geosurvey buoys are slow as hell. I phased them out a long time ago in favor of swarms of geosurvey fighters. However, I am still using a lot of Sensor Drones for scouting potentially hostile space. Here are my current designs :

Code: [Select]

Name MRSD-3 "Glimpse" LRSD-3 "Peeker" B/AS-3
Missile size 2 4 1
Engine size 0,4 1,2 0
Engine multiplier 1,25x 0,80x N/A
# of engines 1 1 1
Missile WH Size 0 0 0
Fuel size 0,6 1,8 0
Agi size 0 0 0
Sensors 0 0 0,781
Reactor 0 0 0,219
Missile WH Size 0 Size 0 Size 0
Speed 6300 km/s 6000 km/s 0 km/s
Range 2220,49M km 21355,23M km 0,00M km
2nd stage 1xB/AS-3 1xB/AS-3

Those are specially designed for my scout ships size 4 launchers, I am pretty sure you can do far better with ICBM sized missiles (the research time for those will be a pain however)

[Vandermeer]

The idea is great. I remember developing geo probes and arming my bigger survey carriers with them back in my 2nd game. There it was intended to become my selected method of scanning those really far away (many billion kilometers) bodies that systems sometimes have. I have forgotten how they worked exactly, but I think the reason this specific game went down was that the method bugged the game out somehow. ...Come to think of it, I recently had a bug in 6.4 that indicates missile maximum range is limited to roughly 2.15b. Maybe that also was the problem back then already, because I sure aimed at something way farther than that.
Anyway, I have to ruin it for you, since even if you figure out a way to start the geo probes, you will still not be able to survey the whole system as some bodies in Sol are further from earth than 2.15b kilometers.


@Cocyte: Did the Peeker work at those distances?

[Cocyte]

@Cocyte: Did the Peeker work at those distances?

Yes, on the old 6.21... Didn't played for a few monthes due to not having a decent computer available :s

[Vandermeer]

Oho, then maybe there is hope. I may test that tomorrow for 6.4 on a secured copy in my current game.

[Gwyn ap Nud (OP)]

Oh I never planned on getting the whole solar system.  My plan was to have the inner solar system done by PDC launched missiles, then do the rest and other systems by ship-launched medium-range missiles.  I'll test out the way-point system.  I assume if you don't do 2-stage, your sensor missile will just impact the planet? Let's find out through SCIENCE and a TEST-GAME!

Well, the missile appears to stay, but I don't know if it scanned it at all. Maybe I just need higher endurance than 3 months though...

Edit: Luna scan with a 1-stage missile for 3 months failed. Cruithne scan with a 2-stage missile... well it doesn't appear to have separated, despite being 0-km separation. Maybe I just need to wait for it's engine time to run out? Either way, the game is now taking a RIDICULOUS amount of time to pass the next month to find out.

Edit: A day later, WOAH! Luna scan continued even after the missile disappeared from my view! So I don't even need a two-stage missile, I can just use a one-stage missile! I'll have to check which missile was more efficient, my one-stage or two-stage. I realized that my two-stage I actually forgot to specify the number of second-stage missiles it released, so I'm fixing that now and doing another two-stage trial. The two-stage missile does have less geo-points than the one-stage does, a little more than half.

Aaaaaand, success! The probes stay on the map longer, even if range and effectiveness and cost are up... But the starting ICBM launcher is size 24 so I can just use those to up my size 20 prototypes, increase their range and geo-stuff a little more. I don't need them to move fast, they're just being used for blanket-surveying.

[Cocyte]

Congrats! This game have a sharp learning curve, and the missile design system is far from being the easiest thing to understand