Fire control in the tutorial

[Micro102 (OP)]

I've been wondering about this, the tutorial guides you through making a laser with a tracking speed of 3000, but if your ship goes faster then this, then would you not need that tracking speed of 3000? If you had a ship with a speed of 4000 could you use the original and cheaper 1000 tracking speed for your lasers with the same efficiency?


(and on a side note, do ships that get the conditional order to refuel need a jump drive if they need to jump to refuel? Or is there a way to set it up so they don't?)

[Hawkeye]

I've been wondering about this, the tutorial guides you through making a laser with a tracking speed of 3000, but if your ship goes faster then this, then would you not need that tracking speed of 3000? If you had a ship with a speed of 4000 could you use the original and cheaper 1000 tracking speed for your lasers with the same efficiency?


(and on a side note, do ships that get the conditional order to refuel need a jump drive if they need to jump to refuel? Or is there a way to set it up so they don't?)

Just to make sure we are talking about the same thing.

Weapons don´t have a tracking speed by itself. Only FCS (fire control systems) and turrets have.
The tracking speed shown on the design (F5) or individual unit (F6) screen for beam weapons is the higher of either the ships speed or the tracking speed tech you have researched.

So, if you are asking if you could design a FCS with the basic, 1000 km/s tracking speed tech, the answer is yes.
But (there is allways a but ) to make use of the manouverability of your 4.000 km/s warship, you´d have to use the "x 4 size - x 4 tracking speed", quadrupling both, size and cost of the FCS. Therefore advancing the tracking speed tech is much more efficient.


As to your conditional refuel order:
If there are jumpgates beteween your ship and the colony where it wants to refuel, it will use them. I don´t belive it will use jumpships, stationed at jumppoints at the moment though.

[Micro102 (OP)]

So, since the FC isn't completely useful unless the ship is as fast or faster then it, and since a FC that is faster then the ship isn't completely useful because of the ship's turn speed, then the FC should be as close as possible to ships speed to be effective unless on a turret?

[Hawkeye]

So, since the FC isn't completely useful unless the ship is as fast or faster then it, and since a FC that is faster then the ship isn't completely useful because of the ship's turn speed, then the FC should be as close as possible to ships speed to be effective unless on a turret?

Correct, except if the ship is slower than the basic FC-speed you have designed, then this becomes your target mark

Example:
You have researched Beam Firecontrol speed 3000 km/s and your ship has a max. speed of 2.250 km/s. Any beam-weapon on that ship (not turret mounted) will have a tracking speed of 3000 km/s

Same as above, but you only have researched Beam Firecontrol speed 2000 km/s. Any beam-weapon on that ship will have a tracking speed of 2250 km/s

[Micro102 (OP)]

So does it actually have that tracking speed? Or is the accuracy lowered when it's off?

[Brian Neumann]

Okay, this is one of those frequent questions that keep coming up.

Tracking speed is a funny concept in aurora.  The term is used in several places, and one ship might have weapons with several different tracking speeds as well as fire control for different speeds on board, so here goes.

For non turret weapons:
  The tracking speed for a non turreted weapon is the better of the speed of the ship, or the base fire control speed that has been researched.  This was done to allow orbital bases to use weapons that were not in a turret.  This is the tracking speed of the weapon itself.  The tracking speed that is used for actually firing is the LOWER of the weapon tracking speed and the fire control tracking speed.  

For turreted weapons:
  The weapon tracking speed is the tracking speed of the turret.  The ship speed is not a factor at all.  The actual tracking speed is just the same, ie the LOWER of the weapon tracking speed and the fire control tracking speed.

All of this applies to all of the beam weapons (non missile).

A few comments about the different weapons.  

Lasers, Mesons, and Gauss cannon are currently the only weapons that can be mounted in turrets.  The idea of having turreted weapons was to allow for point defense against incomming missiles, or possibly fighters/Fast Attack Craft.  The other weapons are not able to be turret mounted and this is where the ship speed becomes a factor.  

For early tech ships the railgun is actually a very good point defense weapon.  It's high rate of fire counters the lack of having a turret, and if the ship speed is greater than the base fire control speed it will actually have a better chance to hit an incomming missile.  By mid tech level this is reversed because the base tracking speed is at least equal to the ship speed (except in specalized designs) if not better.  Here the turret weapons become more effective.  At medium high or better tech levels the Gauss cannon is the best for putting out the greates volume of fire (up to 10 shots per weapon per 5 second cycle).  In a turret it will have the chance to shoot down a lot of incomming missiles.

A sort of basic ranking of the different point defense weapons.
Small Rail gun to start, replaced by gauss cannon at a rate of fire of 5 or better.  this is pretty much strictly an anti missile weapon due to the short ranges.
Meson for final point defense where range is not a major factor, but you want the ability to shoot at enemy ships as well
Lasers for longer range point defense/ engaging enemy ships.

Brian

[SteveAlt]

So does it actually have that tracking speed? Or is the accuracy lowered when it's off?

All of this is explained in part 10 of the tutorial. viewtopic.php?f=101&t=1961

A lot of your questions would be answered if you read the tutorials and all the threads in the FAQ section.

Steve

[Micro102 (OP)]

Different parts of the tutorial and in-game experience contradict each other. What do you think I read before asking this question?

One part says that having a tracking speed of 3000 will not effect the base chance to hit for vehicles going 3000 km/s or less, but another part says that since a weapon is mounted on a ship, It's tracking speed is only as good as the speed of the ship, then in the game, the overview of a ship's status shows that if a ships speed is higher then the tracking speed, then then tracking speed will be the ship's speed.

So now The question comes down to, whats the ratio of accuracy loss to the difference of the ships speed and the fire control tracking speed?

[Hawkeye]

Ok, I´ll try to clear things up a bit

Fire Control Systems:
Have a build-in tracking speed. Any target that moves at that speed or slower can be targetet at 100% efficiency. Any target moving faster can be targetet at reduced efficiency, depending on the speed difference. A ship moving at twice the tracking speed is targeted at 50% efficiency, i.e. the to-hit-chance is halfed.

Beam Weapons in turrets:
Have a build-in tracking speed. The same rules apply as for FCS.

Beam Weapons in fixed mounts (i.e. NOT turreted):
Have NO build-in tracking speed, but will get a tracking speed assigned, once put in a ship. This assigned tracking speed is the larger of a) the speed of the ship or b) the basic tracking speed researched

Idealy, the tracking speed of the weapon and the FCS match. If they don´t, the slower of the two counts, i.e. if the tracking speed of the FCS is 50% of the target and the weapons tracking speed is 70% of the target speed, the to-hit-chance is 50%

[Micro102 (OP)]

Ah, i see thanks......Now another question. Since turrets have their own turning ability, shouldn't their tracking speed be their speed plus the ships speed?

[Hawkeye]

There was discussion of this in another threat. What it boiled down (as far as I can remember) was this:

Yes, if the ship only has/uses turrets and all at the same target.
Anything else gets complicated.
Let´s say, your ship has 4 fixed laser cannones along with two laser turrets.

Now, if all weapons engage one target, the manouvering the ship does to bring the fixed lasers to bear should add to the tracking speed of the turrets.

If the turrets engage one target, while the fixed lasers engage another target, the manouverability should probably be substracted from the turrets tracking speed (assuming, the fixed lasers allways get the mavouverability bonus, but what if you split the fixed lasers beteen two targets?).

If the fixed lasers don´t engage a target, but both turrets engage different targets, you would need a way to tell aurora, which turret will benefit from the manouverability of the ship, and which one will receive the malus for having to counter the movement of the ship.

All in all, I realy don´t think this would add enough to make the added micromanagement worthwile.