Author Topic: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions  (Read 345157 times)

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Offline Whitecold

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #285 on: June 14, 2018, 10:25:19 AM »
From what I see STO weapons are currently limited to beam weapons only.
Could we also get STO missile launchers? Without long range missiles an enemy can always park themselves outside of beam range and bombard the planet, without being able to strike back.

Further, having a beam fire control for each STO weapon sounds quite expensive. Would it not make more sense to have the fire control as a separate vehicle, where then one can combine however many guns and fire controls into a battery as you think useful?
 

Offline Barkhorn

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #286 on: June 14, 2018, 10:32:56 AM »
"Would it not make more sense to have the fire control as a separate vehicle"
That's what they do in real life usually, at least for land-based AA.  Ships tend to all have their own fire control.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #287 on: June 14, 2018, 12:17:23 PM »
From what I see STO weapons are currently limited to beam weapons only.
Could we also get STO missile launchers? Without long range missiles an enemy can always park themselves outside of beam range and bombard the planet, without being able to strike back.

Further, having a beam fire control for each STO weapon sounds quite expensive. Would it not make more sense to have the fire control as a separate vehicle, where then one can combine however many guns and fire controls into a battery as you think useful?

No missiles, because I want to avoid the complexities of ground units with ordnance, which also require long-range sensors and long-range fire controls. Beams are nice and straightforward. The fire controls are cheaper for ground units. I wanted every ground unit to be self-contained - otherwise it gets complex to track (for the player as well), so this is the same overall cost for separating fire controls without the micromanagement.
 

Offline Person012345

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #288 on: June 14, 2018, 05:25:14 PM »
"Would it not make more sense to have the fire control as a separate vehicle"
That's what they do in real life usually, at least for land-based AA.  Ships tend to all have their own fire control.
Used to be, but a lot of modern ground units incorporate their own tracking systems, especially SPAAGs (which beam weapons would be relatively analogous to).
 

Offline Whitecold

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #289 on: June 15, 2018, 01:52:25 AM »
No missiles, because I want to avoid the complexities of ground units with ordnance, which also require long-range sensors and long-range fire controls. Beams are nice and straightforward. The fire controls are cheaper for ground units. I wanted every ground unit to be self-contained - otherwise it gets complex to track (for the player as well), so this is the same overall cost for separating fire controls without the micromanagement.
My PDCs just all used to be massive missile bases, with beam armament for PD only. STO units could draw ordnance from the planetary stockpile directly, and if the sensors are the problem, one could add them to the deep space tracking installations.
I really don't want to be out ranged, and if you are behind in beam tech, you cannot compensate with your missiles
 

Offline Person012345

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #290 on: June 15, 2018, 02:15:26 AM »
You can still build orbital missile bases, and remember with the new entrenchment theoretically the idea is that to wipe out your ground forces with missiles they'd basically have to glass the planet and render it uninhabitable.
 

Offline Zincat

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #291 on: June 15, 2018, 03:37:39 AM »
My PDCs just all used to be massive missile bases, with beam armament for PD only. STO units could draw ordnance from the planetary stockpile directly, and if the sensors are the problem, one could add them to the deep space tracking installations.
I really don't want to be out ranged, and if you are behind in beam tech, you cannot compensate with your missiles

Build orbital missile bases. They are available and still very much more efficient than missile ships of similar tonnage. Problem solved.

Really, the fact PDC "broke a thousand rules and needed special code in a hundred places just to work" is one of the reasons why Steve took them out.
Even before, I refused to use them. Way too convenient and unbalanced, both because the lack of maintenance and the fact you could build them with industry rather than shipyards. I always built orbital bases for missile launchers.

By the way, you're mistaking the purpose of STO ground units here. As Persona012345 said, their purpose is: The enemy can either glass the planet at long range (if they can get past your PD), at the cost of most of its infrastructure and population.
Or try to conquer it with its infrastructure still present, a fact that is hard to accomplish because planetary assault is harsh.
And if you're behind in tech, tough luck. Build more orbital missile bases.

The purpose of STO ground units is not to keep a system clean of enemies. For that you use ships or orbital bases...
« Last Edit: June 15, 2018, 08:59:09 AM by Zincat »
 

Offline the obelisk

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #292 on: June 15, 2018, 12:24:01 PM »
By the way, you're mistaking the purpose of STO ground units here. As Persona012345 said, their purpose is: The enemy can either glass the planet at long range (if they can get past your PD), at the cost of most of its infrastructure and population.
Or try to conquer it with its infrastructure still present, a fact that is hard to accomplish because planetary assault is harsh.
And if you're behind in tech, tough luck. Build more orbital missile bases.
I feel like it's worth pointing out that since in C# you'll be able to target planets with beam weapons, being outranged in beam tech is actually something to worry about.  Unless I'm misremembering how things will work, an enemy with longer range beams could park a beam ship just out of your range, and destroy your STO with its weaponry, with minimal damage to population and infrastructure.
 

Offline TCD

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #293 on: June 15, 2018, 01:05:08 PM »
By the way, you're mistaking the purpose of STO ground units here. As Persona012345 said, their purpose is: The enemy can either glass the planet at long range (if they can get past your PD), at the cost of most of its infrastructure and population.
Or try to conquer it with its infrastructure still present, a fact that is hard to accomplish because planetary assault is harsh.
And if you're behind in tech, tough luck. Build more orbital missile bases.
I feel like it's worth pointing out that since in C# you'll be able to target planets with beam weapons, being outranged in beam tech is actually something to worry about.  Unless I'm misremembering how things will work, an enemy with longer range beams could park a beam ship just out of your range, and destroy your STO with its weaponry, with minimal damage to population and infrastructure.
Yes, but I think its a bit more complicated than that because of the new terrain modifier rules. On a flat grassland planet then being outranged is a major worry, but on a mountain or jungle world it will be very difficult for a ship to successfully hit your SFO.
 

Offline DEEPenergy

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #294 on: June 15, 2018, 02:24:13 PM »
Weapons have failure rates now as well, to prevent that
 

Offline Zincat

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #295 on: June 15, 2018, 03:38:07 PM »
I feel like it's worth pointing out that since in C# you'll be able to target planets with beam weapons, being outranged in beam tech is actually something to worry about.  Unless I'm misremembering how things will work, an enemy with longer range beams could park a beam ship just out of your range, and destroy your STO with its weaponry, with minimal damage to population and infrastructure.

It is possible, but as stated:
1) If you want to prevent sieges, build more orbital defense stations. Especially if you are out-teched. Do not let the enemy close if at all possible. I don't get this complaint about being outranged. Before, you had PDCs. Now, you're going to have orbital bases. It is the very SAME thing. You can put on your orbital defense bases the same things you had in your PDCs. They are functionally identical. So... what exactly is the problem with orbital defense bases?
2) As said by TCD, Steve's changes should mean that it's going to be very hard hitting troops who are heavily fortified and/or in rough terrain
3) As DEEPenergy said, failure rates. Supposedly, this constant bombardment will cost a TON of maintenance points, and cause a lot of failures. If this is combined to 2), that is if you're sieging a planet with rough terrain and a lot of fortified troops, it might take a long time and be very costly to bombard.
So it should all even out. And, once the orbital defenses have been destroyed, there should be a lot of situations where a ground invasion is just plain better.


... And also, I will be blunt.  If you are out-teched and out-produced by an enemy who has a lot more ships than you, things ARE supposed to be hard. The state of the rules, as they should be, seem balanced enough for me.

If instead the place being attacked is an out-of-the-way planet and your forces are somewhere else, it's a case of being caught with your pants down.

And even more important, Steve did these changes to hit chances from orbit and to failure rates specifically to address these possible issues. Which means that if the numbers are not balanced, I imagine he will tinker with them until they are. I understand that a lot of mechanics are going to be very different and that can cause disconcert... but there's no need to be preemptively pessimistic in my opinion.
« Last Edit: June 15, 2018, 03:45:26 PM by Zincat »
 

Offline QuakeIV

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #296 on: June 15, 2018, 05:37:20 PM »
I think the point is less 'its too hard' and more you cant do everything you aught to be able to, which is arficially inflating difficulty there.  IE shooting missiles to at least try to drive away beam warships.  Beam warships even with failures will be highly potent bombardment assets.

I am fully in favor of Steve not working on something if he thinks its going to be too much trouble, but surely it would be nice to have missiles for ground units if it were feasible to do so (and Id suppose that could become a thing one day).
 

Offline the obelisk

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #297 on: June 15, 2018, 06:57:42 PM »
It is possible, but as stated:
1) If you want to prevent sieges, build more orbital defense stations. Especially if you are out-teched. Do not let the enemy close if at all possible. I don't get this complaint about being outranged. Before, you had PDCs. Now, you're going to have orbital bases. It is the very SAME thing. You can put on your orbital defense bases the same things you had in your PDCs. They are functionally identical. So... what exactly is the problem with orbital defense bases?
The fact that they aren't STO's.  This matters both because of how significant roleplay is to Aurora and because STO's are mechanically different from orbital bases, such as benefiting from fortification and using ground unit officers.
This can just as easily be turned against STO beams.  If Orbital Defense Stations being just like PDCs means we don't need STO missiles, then why do we need STO beams?  After all, you could just build Orbital Defense Stations with beams on them.

... And also, I will be blunt.  If you are out-teched and out-produced by an enemy who has a lot more ships than you, things ARE supposed to be hard. The state of the rules, as they should be, seem balanced enough for me.
It's not about things being hard, it's about having no response.  If the enemy out-ranges me with beam weapons, and I have no missiles, there is nothing I can do.  This is not the same as being out-ranged with missiles, where I at least have the ability to shoot at incoming missiles.  I understand that, too an extent, weapon failure is intended to deal with this, I feel that a mechanic which involves no player interaction is not a satisfying form of defense.
 

Offline QuakeIV

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #298 on: June 15, 2018, 07:57:24 PM »
That note about roleplaying brought a fun thought to mind.  I always liked the idea of huge ground units being able to bring spacecraft down in flames, but imagine if you had Ordinatus Armageddon tier things that are just gigantic weapons systems which your empire might only be able to build a few of, able to down almost anything?
 

Offline Jovus

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #299 on: June 15, 2018, 11:50:04 PM »
Before, you had PDCs. Now, you're going to have orbital bases. It is the very SAME thing. You can put on your orbital defense bases the same things you had in your PDCs. They are functionally identical. So... what exactly is the problem with orbital defense bases?

This is a real question, not a counterpoint in the argument, which I'm merely watching as an interested observer.

Will we be able to make orbital bases with planetary industry? If not, will we have to dedicate a shipyard to orbital base construction, or is there some third way not in the current version?