Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: February 08, 2020, 10:29:24 AM »I hear you...
I do agree that you do NOT want necessarily repeated micro for the sake of having them. But I don't think the solution to that is to give up but to the add the necessary support to fix that.
I do not agree that using raiding techniques would necessarily be a net loss as the pure threat of it will impact the way you conduct a campaign and even how you design your ships. How you defend trailing support forces, defend fuel and supply outposts and patrol core system from possible incursions. I also would like to stress that it is not all about raiding. Scouting is probably an even greater part of it and stealth strikes can be a third.
It will give more of a feeling of uncertainty and not all focus on just pure combat, it will change the character of conflicts in general.
I have played in a few multi-faction campaigns where factions quite often had forces in the same system and combat was allot more fluid than what you experience in a regular standard Aurora campaign, the need to patrol and have security forces and military bases scattered all over the place give the game a whole new character. I'm not directly after that, but the pure threat of enemy military vessels deep into your territory will impact more than just sending ships on patrol.
If you also tie it into population reaction of home territory being compromised thing cold be interesting from another perspective.
In my opinion having the option of cloaking ships might actually become sort of multiplier effect when handled correctly.
In general I do think that Aurora already have the tools needed for most patrol orders you need. You can have patrols move about and stop to refuel/resupply and wait for crew to rest properly. It also will be allot easier to sprinkle about maintenance facilities in C# to keep ships maintained even at smaller military bases. This means that a ship that stay in port to rest the crew will not have their maintenance clock run.
As you also can save patrol orders it is quite easy to take a ship off patrol and have them make some overhaul and then add that patrol order back to the ship.
So... a small patrol ship with a deployment time of say 15 days could be out on actual patrol about 10 days, then refuel and rest for 5 days. If it also have a maintenance cycle of say 2-3 years it probably could operate for about 5 years like this before it needs its first major overhaul. You generally would need two to three ships on on same patrol order to have ships constantly paroling the area, obviously depending on the area patrolled.
I also gave some other options earlier in the thread such as being able to assign a system as convoy zone for commercial ships and assigning escort ships to the commercial AI. The AI would then pool all transport ships with some escort for all travelling in the system. This could be set up using some AI logic.
The other thing probably also is that they will not need to be actively patrolled all the time. You will only set up patrols as you see that you need them.
I certainly don't think that the lack of automation tools is a good argument for not including it... I think the tools should be added if they are absent. I also think that Aurora will have most of the tools needed as is, but might need some additional tools to round it out. The new organisational view and use of ships certainly will help with organising fleets and patrols without going insane.
I do agree that you do NOT want necessarily repeated micro for the sake of having them. But I don't think the solution to that is to give up but to the add the necessary support to fix that.
I do not agree that using raiding techniques would necessarily be a net loss as the pure threat of it will impact the way you conduct a campaign and even how you design your ships. How you defend trailing support forces, defend fuel and supply outposts and patrol core system from possible incursions. I also would like to stress that it is not all about raiding. Scouting is probably an even greater part of it and stealth strikes can be a third.
It will give more of a feeling of uncertainty and not all focus on just pure combat, it will change the character of conflicts in general.
I have played in a few multi-faction campaigns where factions quite often had forces in the same system and combat was allot more fluid than what you experience in a regular standard Aurora campaign, the need to patrol and have security forces and military bases scattered all over the place give the game a whole new character. I'm not directly after that, but the pure threat of enemy military vessels deep into your territory will impact more than just sending ships on patrol.
If you also tie it into population reaction of home territory being compromised thing cold be interesting from another perspective.
In my opinion having the option of cloaking ships might actually become sort of multiplier effect when handled correctly.
In general I do think that Aurora already have the tools needed for most patrol orders you need. You can have patrols move about and stop to refuel/resupply and wait for crew to rest properly. It also will be allot easier to sprinkle about maintenance facilities in C# to keep ships maintained even at smaller military bases. This means that a ship that stay in port to rest the crew will not have their maintenance clock run.
As you also can save patrol orders it is quite easy to take a ship off patrol and have them make some overhaul and then add that patrol order back to the ship.
So... a small patrol ship with a deployment time of say 15 days could be out on actual patrol about 10 days, then refuel and rest for 5 days. If it also have a maintenance cycle of say 2-3 years it probably could operate for about 5 years like this before it needs its first major overhaul. You generally would need two to three ships on on same patrol order to have ships constantly paroling the area, obviously depending on the area patrolled.
I also gave some other options earlier in the thread such as being able to assign a system as convoy zone for commercial ships and assigning escort ships to the commercial AI. The AI would then pool all transport ships with some escort for all travelling in the system. This could be set up using some AI logic.
The other thing probably also is that they will not need to be actively patrolled all the time. You will only set up patrols as you see that you need them.
I certainly don't think that the lack of automation tools is a good argument for not including it... I think the tools should be added if they are absent. I also think that Aurora will have most of the tools needed as is, but might need some additional tools to round it out. The new organisational view and use of ships certainly will help with organising fleets and patrols without going insane.