Author Topic: C# Aurora Changes Discussion  (Read 441722 times)

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Offline 83athom

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #765 on: May 18, 2017, 03:47:31 PM »
There is already an 'allowed travelling range' for AI carrier-based fighters so I could extend that to ships. However, I am considering adding fuel use to the AI. With the improved execution speed there should be scope for adding more complex AI behaviour. Not sure yet about AI maintenance.
If you do that then you need to make sure the AI can create tugs  and/or supply ship logic to go out and refuel to fetch the stranded ships if they become unlucky enough to get stranded in the first place.
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Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #766 on: May 18, 2017, 05:03:28 PM »
If you do that then you need to make sure the AI can create tugs  and/or supply ship logic to go out and refuel to fetch the stranded ships if they become unlucky enough to get stranded in the first place.

I suppose one option might be to have the AI use fuel and attempt normal refuelling and tanker ops, but to still allow AI ships to operate at maybe 25% of normal speed when out of fuel and restrict them to 'return home and fuel' orders. That creates 90% of the restrictions for full fuel use and avoids any situations that the AI would find difficult to handle.
 

Offline alex_brunius

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #767 on: May 18, 2017, 05:10:38 PM »
I suppose one option might be to have the AI use fuel and attempt normal refuelling and tanker ops, but to still allow AI ships to operate at maybe 25% of normal speed when out of fuel and restrict them to 'return home and fuel' orders. That creates 90% of the restrictions for full fuel use and avoids any situations that the AI would find difficult to handle.

Stop reading my mind and stealing my suggestions while I am busy writing them  :P j/k ( although I was going to suggest 10% of normal speed for return home for free without fuel ).

Similar might be possible to do for supplies, not have the catastrophic ships blowing up when they fail but still have the cost and some penalty/punishment which the AI can handle better.

 

Offline ChildServices

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #768 on: May 18, 2017, 11:29:51 PM »
Carronades still kinda suck, but at least their cost reflects that a little better. I still don't know if I'd really ever want to use them, even with the sensor/engine nerfs that are going to Make Beams Great Again™ and force missiles to pay for it. I think they either need double damage across the board, the ability to be turreted, or both. Maybe they could benefit from size reduction techs?
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Offline MagusXIX

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #769 on: May 19, 2017, 08:24:21 AM »
Re: Abstracted shipping lines.

As long as commerce raiding remains fun and strategically viable. Commerce raiding is super important to me, as one of my favorite things to do in Aurora is attempt to recreate WW2 era submarines, but in space. Hell, if you can manage to make commerce raiding even more fun and viable by abstracting shipping lines, that'd be even better. So long as I can still make space submarines and they're actually useful.
 

Iranon

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #770 on: May 19, 2017, 02:14:11 PM »
Carronades still kinda suck, but at least their cost reflects that a little better. I still don't know if I'd really ever want to use them, even with the sensor/engine nerfs that are going to Make Beams Great Again™ and force missiles to pay for it. I think they either need double damage across the board, the ability to be turreted, or both. Maybe they could benefit from size reduction techs?

With the rest as in the current version, I'd use them. For cheap bulky ships, the lowered crew requirements are a significant upside over similar lasers now that we don't pay twice as much for the weapon. We also get large calibres for very modest research effort.
Cheap bulky ships may be hurt considerably by the maintenance changes though, as they now clog up valuable infrastructure no matter how cheap they are to build or maintain.
 

Offline Garfunkel

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #771 on: May 19, 2017, 07:56:37 PM »
They already work fairly well as cheap low-tech JP defence ship weaponry and will work better in C# Aurora in that role. Slow-speed monitors with little armour and a ton of carronades will form a cheap but effective JP defence in early game. I don't care if they become useless in late game - not all weapons need to be optimised to be equally useful (or at all useful) through the game. Having your fleets weaponry evolve through time is a great concept as well.
 

Offline Bremen

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #772 on: May 19, 2017, 10:02:34 PM »
Carronades are pretty horrible weapons for JP defense barges, to be honest. The reason is that movement happens before weapons fire, so in the 5 second increment the enemy ships will move off the JP and because carronade falloff is so extreme, 1/(1+range/10,000km), even a relatively low speed ship will be taking a third or less damage from the carronades. And that shot is all you're going to get. If you want a slow ship that guards jump points, you're honestly probably best off with a bunch of box launcher missiles with very short (well, short for missiles, so still millions of km) ranges.

If you want to use carronades efficiently you need to be absolutely sure that they'll be firing from a range of less than 10,000 km, and that means putting them on fast ships.
 

Offline iceball3

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #773 on: May 20, 2017, 03:25:25 AM »
Carronades are pretty horrible weapons for JP defense barges, to be honest. The reason is that movement happens before weapons fire, so in the 5 second increment the enemy ships will move off the JP and because carronade falloff is so extreme, 1/(1+range/10,000km), even a relatively low speed ship will be taking a third or less damage from the carronades. And that shot is all you're going to get. If you want a slow ship that guards jump points, you're honestly probably best off with a bunch of box launcher missiles with very short (well, short for missiles, so still millions of km) ranges.

If you want to use carronades efficiently you need to be absolutely sure that they'll be firing from a range of less than 10,000 km, and that means putting them on fast ships.
Last I checked, standard transits cause FC, sensor, shield, and command jam, leaving the jumper helpless.
It's much less time for squadron jumps, but i don't think they'll be moving immediately.
That said, squadron jumpers can already appear a ways off from the point, making it hard to intercept them in reasonable carronade range.
Considering that carronades are still literally just infrared lasers, and suffer the same fire rate penalties for capacitor tech per damage, you're probably just better off padding that tonnage with microwaves, mesons, railguns, etc instead. Same effective range, more effective damage per ton for the most part, unless a carronade alpha strike would put a meaningfully big hole in whatever you're hitting in one shot.
 

Iranon

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #774 on: May 20, 2017, 05:09:48 AM »
On fast ships, I want weapons that are good ton for ton rather than cheap (since moving bulk around at high speed is expensive, both in BP for engines and fuel). On fast ships I want weapons that potentially allows me to outrange opponents, but which are also good enough at short range if I can't... this applies to carronades, but imo mid-sized lasers with decent wavelength tech fit the bill better if we don't care for component cost.

Where I like carronades or large calibre but otherwise low-tech lasers is as part of slow, cheap fleet consisting mainly of anti-missile barges. For cheap, they give respectable range (I can now kite tech-inferior opponents to death despite being slow by my standards, and I can respond against faster enemies. Damage at range will be poor, but I have cheap bulky components to tank hits... may work out overall) and serious point blank firepower (useful for an alpha strike against a homeworld, or defensively in a balanced fleet: if the opponent stays away I'm happy, if they come to play they get a big ball of plasma shoved up their exhaust). Railgun flak barges with a few carronade ships to discourage beam attackers aren't very capable for their tonnage, but they're competitive by cost and excellent garrison fleets (very good PPV by cost).
« Last Edit: May 20, 2017, 05:12:59 AM by Iranon »
 

Offline Zincat

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #775 on: May 20, 2017, 06:26:54 AM »
I must join my voice in saying I don't like the idea of abstracted civilian shippings.

It seems cumbersome to me, not clear, and it would probably reduce a lot the cat and mouse game I practice against the ai (and the need to defend my own shipping).

Also, it's just a little bit too convenient. And likely also difficult to model in a game that makes sense.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #776 on: May 20, 2017, 07:16:16 AM »
I intend to stay with the current model for civilian shipping. I hope that the faster execution speed in C# Aurora will significantly reduce any slowdown from civilian shipping.
 

Iranon

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #777 on: May 20, 2017, 07:19:41 AM »
Glad to hear it. A major strength of Aurora is that it simulates many things in a consistent manner and has gameplay elements emerge around that, instead of abstracting things away.
 

Offline MagusXIX

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #778 on: May 20, 2017, 01:18:18 PM »
If anything, in future updates I'd say shipping should be made even more important and even more vulnerable. Because Aurora uses a jumpgate system, trade/shipping is by default quite safe. In the current system, if you want to put together a task force specifically for trade interdiction you need to sneak them through jump point pickets, which is a real nightmare unless you seriously out-tech your opponent or they don't know how to properly monitor jump points. As most intelligent opponents will have pickets monitoring their most critical systems, the only cargo/transport/fuel ships you're ever likely to catch are the unimportant ones going to out-of-the-way locations.

Don't get me wrong, the logistics game in Aurora is pretty damn fun. Still, it really could use some tweaking. More critical trade goods would be a good introduction, imo. Like, if that mining colony doesn't get its food shipment, it's liable to start starving. That kind of thing. Introducing an alternative means of travel to jump points sounds good, too, although I'm not sure how doable it is. There are several games out these days that offer multiple means of FTL travel (gates, warp drives, wormhole generation, etc.) That ship may have already sailed for Aurora, though.
 

Offline Zincat

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #779 on: May 20, 2017, 03:17:37 PM »
Thank you very much, Steve, for the power generator changes. I love them.

It never made any sense to me that power production was completely linear irrespective of generator size, and it was a thing that encouraged mass spamming of size 1 generators in order to limit possible explosions.

Also, this change makes energy weapons slightly better because of more efficient tonnage usage. In my book, it's all good :)
« Last Edit: May 20, 2017, 03:23:11 PM by Zincat »