C# Aurora Changes Discussion

[Bremen]

Well, earlier I was mistaken, because I almost never reach high tech levels (I play conventional starts).

As such I believed that the maximum engine power modifier would eventually reach the same boost level you can apply to missile engines, thus removing the penalty.

Instead I checked and (assuming the wiki is sort of accurate), you can only normally reach a x3 modifier on engine boost, while the missile maximum boost goes higher than that. So there will always be a penalty if you boost your missile speed to the maximum.

It still does seem to me that average-speed missiles will have the same insane range as before, though. And it's... well, too long I think. I'm just hoping the changes to sensors can somehow mitigate the problem.

It will definitely still be possible to design extremely long range missiles. The question is more do you design missiles with very long range but that need a spotter craft closer to the enemy (and disproportionately large fire controls, but since FCs have triple the range of an equivalent sensor it's doable), or do you design a missile that has range more equivalent to your internal sensors but better performance?

Actually, that raises a question about FCs. In VB6 Aurora missile fire controls have a range three times that of the equivalent sensor, but that's because sensor range scales linearly to sensor size (IE, FCs are one third the size a sensor would be). In C# sensor range no longer scales linearly, so one assumes FCs will have a shorter range increase. Might make my idea of spotter craft less practical.

[Iranon]

Very-long-range missiles, probably relying on spotter craft, will be possible. However, compared to the current version they will pay a much higher performance penalty. Imo that's a good thing; currently there's a rather narrow band of reasonable trade-offs dictated by your tech.

[swarm_sadist]

Are we getting hyperdrives back? I got one 90% power anomaly on a planet 1.392 LIGHTYEARS from the primary. It took 9 years for the survey ship to reach it. 

[Zincat]

Are we getting hyperdrives back? I got one 90% power anomaly on a planet 1.392 LIGHTYEARS from the primary. It took 9 years for the survey ship to reach it. 

I have to agree that something like hyperdrive would really be welcome. A lot of distant companions in binary or trinary systems ends up completely unusable. I understand however that hypperdrive was flawed, so I imagine it would have to be re-done entirely...

Very-long-range missiles, probably relying on spotter craft, will be possible. However, compared to the current version they will pay a much higher performance penalty. Imo that's a good thing; currently there's a rather narrow band of reasonable trade-offs dictated by your tech.

Yes you see, my problem with long range missiles is that in VB6 Aurora you could do what I consider to be unbalanced missile designs. I am all for the concept of tradeoffs in performance, and I believe it was not so before. And I worry it will not be so in C# Aurora if range stays the same.

Where engines are concerned, a missile basically has three parameters. Speed, range and size (of the engine and of the fuel carried by the missile). Obviously, speed and range are dependent on tech level. A missile that is considered "fast" in the ion era is different from one which is "fast" in the confinement fusion era, and same is true for range depending on technology.
I consider warhead strength and agility to be not really relevant to this, because they are quite independent from missile engine considerations.

In my opinion it should not be possible to design missiles that are fast (considering tech level), long ranged (once again, considering tech level) AND small. If it is possible to build such a missile, then there's a balance problem and I think in VB6 Aurora there was one.

Both for realism and for improved gameplay, I would like it if people were forced to make choices, to use tradeoffs. So you could have
- A missile that is fast and long ranged, but not small (bigger engine and more fuel carried) OR
- A missile that is fast and small (sacrifices range, does not carry much fuel) OR
- A missile that is small and long ranged (sacrifices speed for this)

I believe the game would benefit a lot from something like this, instead of having the generalist missile which is good at everything like you could do in VB6 Aurora. And in order to do this, missile fuel HAS to be more relevant than it was in VB6 Aurora.
However, unless you boost speed very much it seems to me that range will stay more or less the same as before.

[alex_brunius]

In my opinion it should not be possible to design missiles that are fast (considering tech level), long ranged (once again, considering tech level) AND small. If it is possible to build such a missile, then there's a balance problem and I think in VB6 Aurora there was one.

Both for realism and for improved gameplay, I would like it if people were forced to make choices, to use tradeoffs. So you could have
- A missile that is fast and long ranged, but not small (bigger engine and more fuel carried) OR
- A missile that is fast and small (sacrifices range, does not carry much fuel) OR
- A missile that is small and long ranged (sacrifices speed for this)

If you look at the C# Aurora Missile Engine fuel consumption by size values a small missile (0.5 MSP engine) would have a fuel consumption of over 3 times as much fuel as a very large missile engine, thus cutting it range down to less then 1/3:ed.

While not massive cutting your range to a third is still a clearly noticeable trade off.


And if you look at higher levels of engine boost (above 3) then you can throw efficiency (and range) out of the window totally. Choosing between fast missile or long range missile worked great in VB6 Aurora, and will work even better in C# Aurora with the x5 extra consumption being applied only on consumption above "safe" maximum.

What this means in practice is that a max boosted (x6) missile will have twice as much speed as a missile with x3 boost, but pay for that speed by having just 4%!!! of it's maximum range...

That is a massive trade off, don't you agree?

However, unless you boost speed very much it seems to me that range will stay more or less the same as before.

A missile without speed is a worthless missile, easily shot down by AMM & Point Defense or even possible to outrun or dodge with faster ships or fighters.

It's a bit like arguing fuel is not a concern for warships using very low power commercial engines. Sure it isn't but those warships won't be very useful so there still is a trade off involved...

[ChildServices]

Personally I don't like shields being decoupled from fuel usage, but only because I'm a fan of the idea of them requiring power plants, and power plants needing fuel anyway. XD.

It'd be cool to have shields actually require a power plant on the ship in order to be active, like beam weapons.

[iceball3]

It'd be cool to have shields actually require a power plant on the ship in order to be active, like beam weapons.

Don't shields already cost boronide? Figures that the power plant would already be built in.

[Barkhorn]

Quality-of-life suggestion here:

Can the magazine design screen be a little smarter?  I'm thinking that you could have the player pick the size, and the game calculates the capacity, or the player pick the capacity and the game calculates the size.  Currently the player only can pick the size.

[iceball3]

Quality-of-life suggestion here:

Can the magazine design screen be a little smarter?  I'm thinking that you could have the player pick the size, and the game calculates the capacity, or the player pick the capacity and the game calculates the size.  Currently the player only can pick the size.

Well, it's easy, really. Just treat the magazines as multiples of 20 per HS, reduced by tech level percentage.

[MarcAFK]

While we're at it upgraded armour type should reduce the weight per level of armour. That's really bugged me. Early component armour should be bulky and terrible.

[Gyrfalcon]

Isn't that what already happens? I could be wrong, but when I've rearmored hulls in the past, the weight dropped for the same number of layers of armor.

[alex_brunius]

Isn't that what already happens? I could be wrong, but when I've rearmored hulls in the past, the weight dropped for the same number of layers of armor.

He is talking about armored components, not ship hulls.

[TCD]

What this means in practice is that a max boosted (x6) missile will have twice as much speed as a missile with x3 boost, but pay for that speed by having just 4%!!! of it's maximum range...

I guess that will really hit AMMs, where you will always take the 6x boost. Is this the end of the AMM barrage as a useful anti-ship weapon? It's hard to tell but it feels like this would potentially drop AMM ranges inside beam ranges for equivalent technology?

[Iranon]

AMMs should comfortably outrange beams of similar tech levels.

However, if we want them to be dual-purpose missiles or we invest in the sensor range for a wide anti-missile envelope (small and moderate sensors will be better at picking up missiles than before), we may not always go for the maximum possible boost.
IMO that's a good thing, opening up more viable design decisions.

On another note, I'm a little sad about the loss of short-range missile barrages ignoring regular point defence. For purpose-built missile brawlers, this changes little because we have other ways of rendering PD irrelevant... but it was a very flavourful desperation tactic for regular missile ships in case they couldn't overcome defences.

[Steve Walmsley]

Also worth bearing in mind you can now create missiles and launchers that are size 1.1 or 1.2, etc. so the AMM no longer has to be exactly size 1.