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Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: January 13, 2018, 06:59:30 AM »

The reason why it have worked pretty well in my games are because I have been playing with multiple nation earth starts and with human intelligence on multiple sides. It is quite common for several factions to have mining and colonies in the same systems, often even on the same planets.

This means that military forces can already be in those systems and many conflicts are over specific resources and are more low intensity wars than full blown wars.

This obviously have a huge impact on how ships are designed and how doctrines will evolve in many different types of engagements and threat levels.

Posted by: linkxsc
« on: January 12, 2018, 08:16:34 PM »

"submarines"

Seaplane tenders?


I've messed with more "pure" "sub" designs before, 1-2kt ships with a bunch of missiles. But they only really work at higher techs when you can do a lot of damage with a single missile (cause you can only carry so many, and reloading is a pain) and I'm pretty sure they'll go straight to worthless the second the AI starts putting CIWS on their commercial ships.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: January 12, 2018, 03:50:00 AM »

I envision a "carrier" 6-10kt with 2-4kt of hangar space. Assuming 2kt of hangar, 2x 250t scouts (1 thermal, 1 em, can probably do a size 3 array on them), 4x 112t light fighters,
and 2x 500t 10cm railgun fighters. (or more tiny GC fighters and make the pair of scouts larger), and use thermal sig reduction galore on the engines

Scouts trawl around at low speed (low thermal sig) looking for thermal sigs that look like commercial shipping. Carrier sits ~5-10bkm out to launch and recover fighters. When targets are spotted, send out the fighters to take them out (if you can, approach at lower speeds so your thermals don't show up)

This is how my "submarines" have worked, more or less.

The mother ship usually have good passive sensors and only some rudimentary self defense weapons systems. Its engines have a much thermal reduction as possible and cloaking if available and practical. It then carries a few scouts and a few beam fighters. Raillguns are pretty good in a fighter.

I have not needed to be as far out as 5-10b km though, the mother ship quite often could use its passive sensors to find civilian traffic too from a pretty far distance. Civilian traffic tended to have pretty big thermal signatures.

The new sensor system in Aurora C# will make the smaller scout more effective though so things might change in my next campaign.
Posted by: linkxsc
« on: January 11, 2018, 10:54:52 PM »

I find the best anti commercial tactic in the game are small submarine like mini carriers who basically find the pray and have a few beam fighters do the dirty work. They can practically operate and terrorize an area indefinitely, at least for a couple of years depending on the design.

I envision a "carrier" 6-10kt with 2-4kt of hangar space. Assuming 2kt of hangar, 2x 250t scouts (1 thermal, 1 em, can probably do a size 3 array on them), 4x 112t light fighters,
and 2x 500t 10cm railgun fighters. (or more tiny GC fighters and make the pair of scouts larger), and use thermal sig reduction galore on the engines

Scouts trawl around at low speed (low thermal sig) looking for thermal sigs that look like commercial shipping. Carrier sits ~5-10bkm out to launch and recover fighters. When targets are spotted, send out the fighters to take them out (if you can, approach at lower speeds so your thermals don't show up)
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: January 10, 2018, 05:09:45 PM »

I find the best anti commercial tactic in the game are small submarine like mini carriers who basically find the pray and have a few beam fighters do the dirty work. They can practically operate and terrorize an area indefinitely, at least for a couple of years depending on the design.

Missiles does not seem very effective in this role since they need to be resupplied eventually.

Having a more real submarine mechanic would make these carriers extremely effective and dangerous against civilian traffic that is not heavily patrolled and/or escorted.
Posted by: IanD
« on: November 07, 2017, 01:31:07 PM »

Have you been reading Glen Cooks "Passage at Arms?" This is one of the best submarines in space books ever.

 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Passage-at-Arms-Glen-Cook/dp/1597801194/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Posted by: 83athom
« on: November 05, 2017, 07:47:13 PM »

Can't missiles home in on passive sensors?  That way the missiles themselves aren't going to be emitting anything.
Missiles can only home in on a passive signature if there is already a current active contact associated with it. Passive sensor missiles can however fire another missile at a passive contact, and those missiles can have an active sensor to home in by themselves.
Posted by: MarcAFK
« on: November 04, 2017, 10:17:04 PM »

Even with an extremely large passive sensor that missile would probably only be detected at fairly close range, unless you've over-engineered it's sensor significantly.
Posted by: Michael Sandy
« on: November 04, 2017, 03:45:00 PM »

Except as soon as the missile leaves the tube, it's sensors turn on. Against a target with a very strong passive sensor, it paints a trail right towards you.

Just like you can see the torpedo track, even if you can not see the submarine.  I am not seeing the problem from a game perspective.  You can't TARGET the sub just by backtracking the missiles/torpedos.

Can't missiles home in on passive sensors?  That way the missiles themselves aren't going to be emitting anything.
Posted by: swarm_sadist
« on: November 04, 2017, 03:31:03 PM »

Stealth ships can shoot homing missiles without revealing themselves with active sensors.  Or if you have a noisy distant ARGUS painting the target, they can shoot without revealing themselves.
Except as soon as the missile leaves the tube, it's sensors turn on. Against a target with a very strong passive sensor, it paints a trail right towards you.
Posted by: Michael Sandy
« on: October 26, 2017, 10:36:18 PM »

Stealth ships can shoot homing missiles without revealing themselves with active sensors.  Or if you have a noisy distant ARGUS painting the target, they can shoot without revealing themselves.
Posted by: alex_brunius
« on: October 26, 2017, 05:32:54 AM »

I have considered a submarine equivalent in the game. In the background technobabble, the TN ships are partially in our dimension and partially in the fluid dimension, which is what makes them hard to detect and gives them naval-like movement. When destroyed, they fully emerge into our dimension, which is why wrecks are visible (just like every tiny rock in the system).

However, I have considered a ship modification that would allow ships to fully enter the fluid dimension. They would be much slower (about 25% speed - modified by tech), require special engines and special hull modification. Detection would only be possible using sensors designed for the fluid dimension (sonar) and the sub would also use sonar to detect normal TN ships. The sub could move back into our dimension to use radar or launch missiles but would then be detectable. Special fluid dimension missiles (torpedoes) would be possible, although much shorter-ranged and slower than normal missiles. However, due to the compression from detonation within the fluid dimension, torpedo warhead strengths would be much more powerful (perhaps 4x).

This is an idea I have been kicking around in my head for a while. I want to get C# Aurora up and running properly though before I do anything about it.

I'd love to see a submarine equivalent in the game.

I see a few issues that need to be tackled however for them to be an enjoyable experience:

- With the current map layout chokepoints at Jump Gates would make it way too easy to secure your trade and rear lines from raiders. They would need some way to circumvent chokepoints which can't be exploited by the main strike fleet.

- There is no good way automate convoy sailing by commercial shipping and escort, which would make it very tedious to defend against.

- There is no good way to automate raiding ( patrolling known lanes and attack stray lone targets of opportunities ), which would make it very tedious to use alot of small raiders.

- There are currently no "small traffic" such as bus/supply traffic to and from mining colonies, star bases or outposts, and it's not possible to raid minerals delivered via mass drivers either.

- Colonies would need some fairly easy way to detect such raiders at close range as well so they can't close undetected to <5 second missile/torpedo range and blast stuff away bypassing PD and AMM.

- Stealth mechanics for "submarines"/raiders should probably synergize with current stealth mechanics in some way to not add too much complexity.
Posted by: CryptCypher
« on: October 25, 2017, 03:29:21 AM »

Quote from: Seolferwulf link=topic=9629. msg103836#msg103836 date=1502222009
Lets say you manage to stealthily hit an enemy with a missile, do they recognize you as being responsible for the attack even if they never found your ship?
Would it be possible to goad two NPRs peaceful with each other to go to war by attacking them, making them think the other one's responsible?

I've been experimenting with this concept and hope its possible.  I'd love to see World War II in space: privateers edition.
Posted by: Seolferwulf
« on: August 08, 2017, 02:53:29 PM »

Lets say you manage to stealthily hit an enemy with a missile, do they recognize you as being responsible for the attack even if they never found your ship?
Would it be possible to goad two NPRs peaceful with each other to go to war by attacking them, making them think the other one's responsible?
Posted by: MagusXIX
« on: August 08, 2017, 05:51:51 AM »

What would be the use if these hypothetical submarines can be detected with a new type of sensor? In the end it would only mean I need just one additional type of sensor on my jump point pickets and in battlegroups. Maybe a better idea to allow raiding would be to increase scattering after jumps by a lot so that monitoring of jump points becomes more difficult. Maybe tie this increased scattering to selfjump only drives, or to increased jump blindness, so that traditional jump point assaults remain as they currently are.

This is what I've been thinking, too.