C# Aurora Changes Discussion

[mrwigggles]

Oooo. How about actual interception courses for ships to celestial bodies?

[Iranon]

A few concerns about maintenance:

The current system reflects a consideration analogous to real life - beam and draught were a major limitation for shipbuilding, and things like large enough drydocks available for maintenance were a real cap for practical size of capital ships. One 100000t ship is a much bigger problem than 10 10000t ships. As I understand it, the interesting and not entirely unrealistic situation where modest bases can support large fleets of lesser ships/FACs but not a single capital ship will cease to exist with the planned changes.
Given that large ships get a few more toys (officer-related things, larger cap on engine size), that might not be good for balance.

In the context of other changes, I've already voiced concerns that disposable ships that need no maintenance for their entire service life are already quite competitive. It would be a shame if we were encouraged to play around the maintenance aspect when the aim is to make that deeper and more convenient.
Small ships now requiring significant infrastructure to maintain in numbers is a significant push in that direction.

[alex_brunius]

A few concerns about maintenance:

The current system reflects a consideration analogous to real life - beam and draught were a major limitation for shipbuilding, and things like large enough drydocks available for maintenance were a real cap for practical size of capital ships. One 100000t ship is a much bigger problem than 10 10000t ships. As I understand it, the interesting and not entirely unrealistic situation where modest bases can support large fleets of lesser ships/FACs but not a single capital ship will cease to exist with the planned changes.
Given that large ships get a few more toys (officer-related things, larger cap on engine size), that might not be good for balance.

I agree with these concerns.

How about something like a simple rule such that the maximum size ship that can be handled is for example 1/10:th of the total capacity?

[MarcAFK]

I like the changes to maintenence, however my concern is that the current planned numbers are very restrictive, potentially limiting fleet sizes by a large factor compared to the current game. If I had a game running I could compare the current cost vs what the same fleet would cost under the new system. I might just download an older version which has one of Steve's AAR's in the database for a comparison.

[bean]

A few concerns about maintenance:

The current system reflects a consideration analogous to real life - beam and draught were a major limitation for shipbuilding, and things like large enough drydocks available for maintenance were a real cap for practical size of capital ships. One 100000t ship is a much bigger problem than 10 10000t ships. As I understand it, the interesting and not entirely unrealistic situation where modest bases can support large fleets of lesser ships/FACs but not a single capital ship will cease to exist with the planned changes.
Given that large ships get a few more toys (officer-related things, larger cap on engine size), that might not be good for balance.

I'll very much second this.  The infrastructure needed for a battleship is very different from the infrastructure needed to maintain a group of destroyers of the same tonnage.  The easiest way to solve this is to make the max size and total tonnage separate.  Let's say by a factor of 5, which should preserve much of the current balance WRT size, and also give a cap to how many ships you can park at a given base.  The alternative is to have the tonnage cap scale with some factor of the total tonnage.  A square root is probably too punitive, but using tonnage(thousands)^(2/3) seems to work well.  It crosses with the current system at 125 modules/25,000 tons.  Below that, you have a higher cap than the current system, above that, a lower cap.  Tonnage^.75 only meets current system at 625 modules/125,000 tons. 
Thinking it over, I think I favor the first system.  A ratio of 5 to 1 is a pretty reasonable estimate for support facilities, and it should come close to preserving the current balance.

[Detros]

I'll very much second this.  The infrastructure needed for a battleship is very different from the infrastructure needed to maintain a group of destroyers of the same tonnage.  The easiest way to solve this is to make the max size and total tonnage separate.  Let's say by a factor of 5, which should preserve much of the current balance WRT size, and also give a cap to how many ships you can park at a given base.  The alternative is to have the tonnage cap scale with some factor of the total tonnage.  A square root is probably too punitive, but using tonnage(thousands)^(2/3) seems to work well.  It crosses with the current system at 125 modules/25,000 tons.  Below that, you have a higher cap than the current system, above that, a lower cap.  Tonnage^.75 only meets current system at 625 modules/125,000 tons. 
Thinking it over, I think I favor the first system.  A ratio of 5 to 1 is a pretty reasonable estimate for support facilities, and it should come close to preserving the current balance.

Do you suggest that a ship can use only one fifth of the whole pool of available maintenance at given location at max? That way a battleship may get only partially maintained (or not at all?) even when the amount of available maintenance (1000t per each module or facility) is bigger then the size of this battleship (but less than 5 times her size)? Or to which ratio is that 5:1 referring?

[83athom]

Let's say by a factor of 5, which should preserve much of the current balance WRT size, and also give a cap to how many ships you can park at a given base.  The alternative is to have the tonnage cap scale with some factor of the total tonnage.  A square root is probably too punitive, but using tonnage(thousands)^(2/3) seems to work well.  It crosses with the current system at 125 modules/25,000 tons.  Below that, you have a higher cap than the current system, above that, a lower cap.  Tonnage^.75 only meets current system at 625 modules/125,000 tons. 
Thinking it over, I think I favor the first system.  A ratio of 5 to 1 is a pretty reasonable estimate for support facilities, and it should come close to preserving the current balance.

You seem to have forgot that the capacity of the facilities have been increased to 1000 each. Keeping your 2/3 power makes something like t(x) = 1000x, m(x) = 1000x^(2/3). t(x) equals total capacity, m(x) equals maximum ship size. For an example of 100 facilities; the current system lets you have an infinite number of ships 20000 tons and smaller. The new calculations give a total tonnage of 100000 tons while the maximum tonnage equals ~21500. You can support 4 ships at that maximum tonnage with some space left over. For a farther end example for a "big ship" doctrine, 1250 facilities; You can supply an infinite number of ships 250000 tons and smaller currently. The new calculations give a max ship size of ~116000 tons with a total of 1250000 tons. Even doubling that to 2500 facilities wouldn't let you maintain a ship of 250000 tons again. You would need around 3900 facilities to field a 250000 tonned ship. I think we need to find out another formula.

[bean]

Do you suggest that a ship can use only one fifth of the whole pool of available maintenance at given location at max? That way a battleship may get only partially maintained (or not at all?) even when the amount of available maintenance (1000t per each module or facility) is bigger then the size of this battleship (but less than 5 times her size)? Or to which ratio is that 5:1 referring?

I hadn't thought through exactly how maintenance would work if the ship was bigger than the size cap.  But that is the essence of my idea. 

You seem to have forgot that the capacity of the facilities have been increased to 1000 each. Keeping your 2/3 power makes something like t(x) = 1000x, m(x) = 1000x^(2/3). t(x) equals total capacity, m(x) equals maximum ship size. For an example of 100 facilities; the current system lets you have an infinite number of ships 20000 tons and smaller. The new calculations give a total tonnage of 100000 tons while the maximum tonnage equals ~21500. You can support 4 ships at that maximum tonnage with some space left over. For a farther end example for a "big ship" doctrine, 1250 facilities; You can supply an infinite number of ships 250000 tons and smaller currently. The new calculations give a max ship size of ~116000 tons with a total of 1250000 tons. Even doubling that to 2500 facilities wouldn't let you maintain a ship of 250000 tons again. You would need around 3900 facilities to field a 250000 tonned ship. I think we need to find out another formula.

I hadn't forgotten that.  The numbers you provide line up exactly with my calculations.  Look at where my crossovers fell. 
I agree that a 2/3 exponent is probably too harsh, which is why I then suggested .75 instead.  That gives you a higher tonnage cap than at present up until 125,000 tons.  For 250,000 tons, you need 1575 stations instead of 1250. 

[TCD]

I thought there had already been extensive discussion without conclusion about what exactly "maintenance" represents. For instance, instead of dry docks you could also view maintenance facilities as launch pads for small repair drones. In that case maximum ship size is irrelevant, only the absolute number of repair drones available. Major structural repairs already need a shipyard, so not sure why maintenance would need to be done in a dockyard or hangar.

[Detros]

I thought there had already been extensive discussion without conclusion about what exactly "maintenance" represents. For instance, instead of dry docks you could also view maintenance facilities as launch pads for small repair drones. In that case maximum ship size is irrelevant, only the absolute number of repair drones available. Major structural repairs already need a shipyard, so not sure why maintenance would need to be done in a dockyard or hangar.

Even drones would need more time to get to the furthest end of Big Ship . So to keep the maintenance level similar to Small Ships one would need more maintenance modules/facilities (drone pods located in more distant areas of given shipsite).

[Felixg]

Even drones would need more time to get to the furthest end of Big Ship . So to keep the maintenance level similar to Small Ships one would need more maintenance modules/facilities (drone pods located in more distant areas of given shipsite).

This is terrible logic considering that its a TN game, and ships can speed across the system in a few days, so the difference in time of moving to the end of a 600 ton FAC compared to a 6,000,000 ton super dreadnought would be absolutely negligible.

a fleet composed of dreadnoughts should be a valid play style, if someone wants to RP fielding smaller mixed fleets then that should be a choice, not a requirement.

[alex_brunius]

I thought there had already been extensive discussion without conclusion about what exactly "maintenance" represents. For instance, instead of dry docks you could also view maintenance facilities as launch pads for small repair drones. In that case maximum ship size is irrelevant, only the absolute number of repair drones available. Major structural repairs already need a shipyard, so not sure why maintenance would need to be done in a dockyard or hangar.

The reason you need big expensive facilities is not only because of the physical size of the ship, but also because of the physical size of it's components you may need to replace, and how "deep" inside the ship and complex they are to remove/reach.

Servicing/Overhauling a battleship where you need to handle turrets of 2000 ton or engines of 2500 tons each is vastly more difficult then servicing a small fighters in a hangar where weapons are so light they can be carried almost without any assisting equipment at all.

[Iranon]

One way to handle this would be to have maintenance facilities work analogous to shipyards: tonnage limit + number of slots, possibly degressive costs for "slipway" equivalent.
Adds a bit of complexity, but might make the logistics more interesting when capital ship and FAC bases are no longer interchangeable.

I still favour the current system though, simple and elegant. Imo, it adds more depth and would feel less like a chore than the planned one.

[Zincat]

I strongly disagree with this proposal of making bigger ships require more maintenance. Both for logic reasons and for gameplay reasons.

The equivalence based on size we have with these latest changes, where a 10000 tons ships requires the same amount of maintenance as, for example, 5 2000 tons ships, is a good one. True, the bigger ships has the added complexity of some bigger components and the like. However, similarly the smaller ships will have a lot more components, and some of those will hard to maintain no matter what their size.
In fact, following this reasoning,  I'd even say the 5 smaller ships would be harder to maintain that the bigger one. Because some components will need maintenance that cannot be "compressed" just because the component is smaller.

From a gameplay balance point of view, putting a penalty on bigger ships maintenance seems to me the very thing Steve wanted to avoid. This new system is both harder and easier than before. Harder, because you need a lot more facilities than before if you have a big fleet. Easier, because you are not in a situation where it's "all or nothng" as before, when the ships were too big to be maintained in a certain place. I like this change and  adding some more limitation against bigger ships would only, in my opinion, bring us close to a situation like before.

[alex_brunius]

adding some more limitation against bigger ships would only, in my opinion, bring us close to a situation like before.

No one here wants to add any more limitations against bigger ships... Just keep a small part of the limitations big ships have in the current maintenance system in 7.1!!!

Having your massive battleships be more problematic logistics wise then several smaller screens is a good thing, not a bad thing.