Magazine Explosions

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

In VB6 Aurora, if you have a magazine explosion it only uses 20% of the warhead strength. I am considering using 100% for C# Aurora. It is certainly more dramatic, adds more of an incentive to consider magazine design and reduces the advantages of missiles vs beams.

For both VB6 and C#, the only missiles that can explode are those that exceed the remaining total magazine capacity. So if the current missile load is less than the post-damage magazine capacity, there won't be an explosion.

[Erik L]

Please add some sort of capability to create separate magazines. If the fore magazine blows, there is no guarantee the aft one will (unless there is too much damage).

[Bremen]

I approve of the change, though I'm not sure it will change the balance of beams vs missiles as much as you think (yeah, magazine explosions can only happen to ships with missiles, but in normal combat they'll also only be triggered by missiles since it's impossible to close to beam range without your opponent emptying their magazines first).

Would it be possible to make magazine losses apply proportionately to all missiles? IE, if you lose half your magazines, you lose half your remaining missiles even if they'd fit in the surviving magazine. This would make sense both for explosions and for magazine damage that manages to successfully eject.

[Tuna-Fish]

In VB6 Aurora, if you have a magazine explosion it only uses 20% of the warhead strength. I am considering using 100% for C# Aurora. It is certainly more dramatic, adds more of an incentive to consider magazine design and reduces the advantages of missiles vs beams.

This would make box launchers maybe even too explodey. If half your ship DAC consists of size-6.67 (or whatever size gets them the 1HTK/launcher) box launchers, filled with WH-16 missiles, and your box launcher "ejection" tech is worse than 12.5%, statistically blowing up a single launcher blows up the entire ship in a chain reaction. (Every point of damage to a box launcher causes on average more than one additional box launcher to go up.) Since you wanted to discourage box launchers, this might be desirable, but it might move the needle too much in the "only usable on fighters" category.
How many missiles will blow up from a single magazine explosion? This could of course also be fixed by allowing "magazine armor" for extra HTK on box launchers.

For both VB6 and C#, the only missiles that can explode are those that exceed the remaining total magazine capacity. So if the current missile load is less than the post-damage magazine capacity, there won't be an explosion.

How does this work with box launchers? If you have fired off a couple, or just left a couple empty, no detonation? How about mixed box launchers and magazines?

[Iranon]

I'm wary:

Changes to sensors already greatly favour fighters in missile combat, this will add to that.

A quirk of the damage model aiui (encouraged to have different magazine types to prevent a chain reaction) becomes more pronounced.

While box launchers aren't as safe in the upcoming version, they can be emptied instantly in case of danger, ideally at a target. So if ordnance on board becomes a bigger risk, they may still end up too good.

Last not least, I don't want "fair" designs to become any more vulnerable, battles tend to be quite one-sided as it is.

[chrislocke2000]

There is still shock damage in c# yes? Would think 100% damage could get quite harsh if it leads to major explosions even when you have intact unpenatrated armour. Would you consider this only for direct damage?

I don’t suppose you would consider tracking missiles in individual magazines? Just wondering if in the new damage v destroyed world should there be a situation whereby damaged magazines with missiles in them won’t explode but those missiles won’t be available for use?

[Zincat]

I would like this change a lot, for the simple fact that it makes sense.

It never really made sense that if missiles do explode on your ships they do less damage. Why is that even a thing? Also, it would finally encourage to design magazines which are less likely to explode.

Right now, you can basically ignore that and just go for volume, and that is also due to the fact that the explosion damage is lower than it should be.

Also, forgive me if I am blunt, but so what if "This would make box launchers maybe even too explodey. " ? A ship full of box launchers is basically full of missiles. Of course that should come with a proportionate risk. If one of your missiles explode, in a ship that's 30% composed of missiles, it is obviously the end. And in fact, it SHOULD be obviously the end...

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Please add some sort of capability to create separate magazines. If the fore magazine blows, there is no guarantee the aft one will (unless there is too much damage).

All the magazines are treated separately. If you have five magazines and one is hit, only that magazine explodes. Even then, it will only explode if there are more missiles than the other four magazines can hold and the explosion will only be for those missiles that don't fit on the other magazines.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

How does this work with box launchers? If you have fired off a couple, or just left a couple empty, no detonation? How about mixed box launchers and magazines?

The damage allocation assumes that empty box launchers are hit first.

All possible magazine capacity, including box launchers and normal launchers, is added together. Only missiles that exceed that combined capacity can explode.

[TCD]

All the magazines are treated separately. If you have five magazines and one is hit, only that magazine explodes. Even then, it will only explode if there are more missiles than the other four magazines can hold and the explosion will only be for those missiles that don't fit on the other magazines.

Is this for balance reasons? It doesn't make logical sense that a missile can teleport out of an magazine into another one just before it gets destroyed. I would have thought that it would make more sense to just equally divide missiles between magazines and have those ones in the damaged magazine potentially explode.

The damage allocation assumes that empty box launchers are hit first.

All possible magazine capacity, including box launchers and normal launchers, is added together. Only missiles that exceed that combined capacity can explode.

Again, I'm interested as to why empty box launchers are hit first, rather than it being a percentage chance (ie 50 missiles in 100 launchers is a 50% chance of a destroyed launcher having a missile in it).

[Zincat]

Is this for balance reasons? It doesn't make logical sense that a missile can teleport out of an magazine into another one just before it gets destroyed. I would have thought that it would make more sense to just equally divide missiles between magazines and have those ones in the damaged magazine potentially explode.Again, I'm interested as to why empty box launchers are hit first, rather than it being a percentage chance (ie 50 missiles in 100 launchers is a 50% chance of a destroyed launcher having a missile in it).

I concur. I thought a hit could randomly target even a full magazine. Why is that not the case?
 
If I understand correctly, then this seems a very big balance problem to me. Because a missile ship can basically never be "unlucky" and just explode because a magazine is hit, as long as there are more empty magazines. For example, a ship that used up half of its missiles can never be the target of a magazine explosion until half of its magazines are destroyed.

Seems really unbalanced to me. Considering that a "beam" ship can just blow up because of a reactor explosion.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Really interesting responses.

I was assuming that I should err on the side of caution when assigning magazine damage to missiles and the most effective way to do that is assume empty is hit first.

I am quite happy to go for a proportional damage option, although that means a higher promotion of catastrophic magazine hits. If we go down that route:

1) For magazines, that means a magazine hit would destroy a proportion of missiles equal to the proportion of remaining magazine capacity being hit (assuming ejection fails)
2) For box launchers, the chance of destroying a missile would be equal to the (number of launchers with missiles / total missiles).

Is that a preferred option?

[Zincat]

Really interesting responses.

I was assuming that I should err on the side of caution when assigning magazine damage to missiles and the most effective way to do that is assume empty is hit first.

I am quite happy to go for a proportional damage option, although that means a higher promotion of catastrophic magazine hits. If we go down that route:

1) For magazines, that means a magazine hit would destroy a proportion of missiles equal to the proportion of remaining magazine capacity being hit (assuming ejection fails)
2) For box launchers, the chance of destroying a missile would be equal to the (number of launchers with missiles / total missiles).

Is that a preferred option?

As far as I am concerned, I would absolutely prefer this option. As you said, it means a higher promotion of catastrophic magazine hits. But that is not a bad thing. It is realistic, and it would also be more balanced when we compare the situation to "beam" warships, who have large reactors that can likewise explode with catastrophic results.

Also, it is a good thing because it promotes actually using defenses on missile ships. IF a nation decides to forgo defenses and build "glass cannon" missile ships, I don't see why they should not face the possible consequences. High risks, high rewards, right? If you want to have ships that basically consists of a mobile missile launcher and nothing else, you will surely have a high firepower/tonnage ratio.

But on the other hand, every hit you suffer can turn out to be lethal. As it should be, carrying around explosive has never been safe. If you want to avoid that and don't consider your missile ships as expendable, you'll have to invest more of the tonnage in shields, armor or point defense. And build/research better magazines
As the world wars have shown, ships can and will go down just because of catastrophic magazine explosions sometimes. I don't see why Aurora should be any different.

[Tuna-Fish]

Really interesting responses.

I was assuming that I should err on the side of caution when assigning magazine damage to missiles and the most effective way to do that is assume empty is hit first.

I am quite happy to go for a proportional damage option, although that means a higher promotion of catastrophic magazine hits. If we go down that route:

1) For magazines, that means a magazine hit would destroy a proportion of missiles equal to the proportion of remaining magazine capacity being hit (assuming ejection fails)
2) For box launchers, the chance of destroying a missile would be equal to the (number of launchers with missiles / total missiles).

Is that a preferred option?

I greatly prefer this to empty magazines get hit first. That would be too easy to game so as to make magazine hits irrelevant, even if you don't actually try to.

However, as it makes missile ships much more likely to die from low damage, it would reinforce the advantage longer range has over everything else. If I got to pick an outcome that I wanted the system to promote, I would go for "magazine hits are always very serious and often crippling, but rarely truly catastrophic to the point of taking out ships in single hits." To achieve this, I would suggest that the odds of a successful magazine ejection go up dramatically as chain detonations spread. Maybe:

odds of a magazine detonating after being destroyed = (1- magazine_ejection_chance)^(1+ #_of_magazines_already_destroyed_during_this_damage_round)

So the first magazine goes up with full probability, doing a lot of damage, but following that the chance rapidly dwindles. This could represent smart ejection systems getting more time to prepare as they detect neighboring magazines blowing up. So hit to a magazine is still really, really bad, especially as the missiles do their full damage to internals instead of armor, but less likely to immediately result in a chain detonation that always takes out the entire 40kT strike cruiser.

Another change I'd be interested in is to make the ejection system chance to be per-missile, instead of all-in. So if a mag gets hit, it computes the amount of MSP in it, and then picks random missiles worth that much msp, computes the ejection chance for each one and either ejects them, removing them from the ship's stores, or blowing them up and adding the damage to what's going to be applied after the magazine is resolved. Again, to make the damage somewhat more likely, but also less catastrophic.

[Barkhorn]

As long as we're getting this specific about the "shape" of ships, tracking which magazines are full and all, can we consider allowing the player to "draw" the armor diagram rather than having it always be rectangular?

You could then make it thicker in some places and thinner in others, like how WW2-era battleships were armored.  The engines and magazines were in a heavily armored citadel, while everything else was left mostly unprotected.