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The Academy / Re: Fighter strategy
« Last post by Jorgen_CAB on Today at 06:50:16 PM »
Beam fighters does have it's purpose as do any other weapon type and platform. Missiles are best use when you are able to overwhelm the enemy but if you can't it is going to be very costly to use missiles. Likewise would beam fighters be suicide against an enemy that knows they are part of your doctrine and have weapon systems designed to counter them. It would be much cheaper to destroy the fighters than the cost of building the ships countering them, that is almost always the case with fighters due to them having very expensive engines in comparison with their size. Just adding some of the medium calibre laser cannons on turrets rather than normal mounts would directly kill any beam fighter strategy while not really increase the opportunity cost of the fleet very much. If the enemy fleet mainly uses rail guns it would definitely be a suicide strategy.

I do think that against certain AI races and strategies then beam fighters would work fine, but you would still need to consider a relatively high attrition rate in general. Likewise are missiles not free either but it is easier to carry more missiles than fighters so a missile fleet could likely have more endurance the beam fighters if there are high attrition rate on the fighters. Having expensive carriers running around with empty hangars is generally more expensive than commercial ordnance ships with empty magazines.

I would rate fighters and missiles to be on the same level of attrition rate. It can also be a question on the type of resources you spend on either. Both will require allot of Gallicite. I say you would get around 15 size 6 for every 300t fighter... roughly. I also think fighters would cost you the most Gallicite, so that might also factor in to the calculation as missiles will have most of the cost in Tritanium.

I do think that in general beam fighters is the worse option, especially against an enemy that knows how to counter it. But they still have a use, but not as a main hitter against enemy main capital warships but more against enemy scouts, fighters and other lightly armed and armoured targets.

The main issue I have with beam fighters is that once they are committed the cost of misjudging the enemy strength are likely greater than using missile fighters. With missiles you launch one volley, if it does too little damage you can likely just withdraw the fleet in peace. You only lost the cost of those missiles launched... with the beam fighters the cost of loosing the fighters will be much greater.
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The Academy / Re: Best route to mining Io
« Last post by David_H_Roarings on Today at 02:35:55 PM »
Io can be terraformed to 0. 0 cc eventually
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The Academy / Re: Fighter strategy
« Last post by Droll on Today at 12:49:43 PM »
Quote from: gpt3 on Today at 12:36:34 PM
Disadvantages of beam fighters:
  • High casualties: since warship beam weapons have longer ranges than fighter beam weapons, you will most likely lose several fighters each sortie. This means that your carriers will frequently need to return home for reinforcements.
  • Expensive to upgrade: It's not really economical to upgrade beam fighters - you basically have to rebuild your fleet each time you inaugurate a new generation.
  • More tactical micromanagement: It is tedious to coordinate dozens/hundreds of fighters' fire controls. Fire at will might not focus on priority targets.

It's worth noting that the tactical micromanagement can be mitigated somewhat with micromanagement when the carrier is first build or using "assign fleet"/"assign sub-fleet" as those assignments copy targeting assignments as well. I like to split my carrier wings into squadrons so that I can group up fighters and have them target the same thing within the squadron without having to deal with it one-by-one. Granted, this also helps with missile fighters so the overall point about the beamy bois being more micro intensive still stands, especially as enemy ships get destroyed, forcing you to go back and designate a new target.
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The Academy / Re: Fighter strategy
« Last post by gpt3 on Today at 12:36:34 PM »
Quote from: legemaine on Today at 07:48:41 AM
What's the current view re beam fighters - I've noticed over the years that typically this hasnt been seen particularly effective compared with missile carrying fighters - but I thought I saw some recent posts (cant find them now) that suggested that beam boats were more viable again. Just wanted to check the consensus before I started a carrier fleet strategy.
Like every other question in Aurora, the answer is: it depends - what's your fleet doctrine?

Advantages of missile fighters:
  • Lower casualties: just like missile warships, they can unleash devastating salvoes from beyond enemy detection range (especially if you have dedicated scouts).
  • Cheap to upgrade: You can easily upgrade a missile fighter by swapping out its payload. Obsolete fighters can be used for planetary defense.
  • Less tactical micromanagement: You don't have to pay any attention to the targeting screen after missile launch.
  • Useable for ground combat: You can load box launchers with fighter pods to support your ground forces in an emergency.
Disadvantages of missile fighters:
  • Poor tactical flexibility: if your "devastating" salvo fails to devastate the enemy, then you're out of luck. Hopefully your strike group has time to reload at the carrier.
  • Expensive to use: 20x size-6 missiles is at least as expensive as sacrificing a 300-ton boat. Often much more expensive since missiles are densely packed with expensive components like boosted engines.
  • More strategic micromanagement: You have to establish ammunition manufacturing hubs, supply chains, and local stockpiles.
Advantages of beam fighters:
  • Good tactical flexibility: they can attack enemies, reprioritize targets based on the situation, and even serve as backup point-defense.
  • Overwhelm enemy targeting systems: Point-defense fire controls can target multiple missiles per round. On the other hand, each offensive fire control can only target one fighter per round. 50 fighters will always take longer to kill than 50 missiles or a 50-gun warship, even if the enemy has endgame weapons.
  • Less strategic micromanagement: Beam weapons only consume a small amount of MSP; logistics are probably negligible compared to the rest of your fleet.
Disadvantages of beam fighters:
  • High casualties: since warship beam weapons have longer ranges than fighter beam weapons, you will most likely lose several fighters each sortie. This means that your carriers will frequently need to return home for reinforcements.
  • Expensive to upgrade: It's not really economical to upgrade beam fighters - you basically have to rebuild your fleet each time you inaugurate a new generation.
  • More tactical micromanagement: It is tedious to coordinate dozens of fighters' fire controls. Fire at will might not focus on priority targets.

Quote from: legemaine on Today at 07:48:41 AM
Also, when designing missiles for fighters to carry, would I be right in assuming that people generally designed them to be shorter range than ship borne variants - taking account of the distance a fighter would approach the target, or do people generally use the separation generated by the fighters to protect the main fleet
I think that depends on if the fighters are carrying their own active sensors (in which case you'd want a shorter-range missile) or if they're relying on forward scouts (in which case you'd want a longer-range missile).

In general it's best to use the separation generated by the fighters to protect the main fleet. Carriers and battlestars typically aren't as effective combatants as specialized beam warships, so you should keep them safe unless you have a creative tactic in mind.
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The Academy / Re: Fighter strategy
« Last post by Steve Walmsley on Today at 08:13:45 AM »
Missile fighters get killed less often, as they fight from a distance, but they can only fire once and they have to get through point defence. They will do more damage with a single attack, but it also costs money and resources every time they fire.

Beam fighters can fire for as long as their MSP last, so they can do a lot more damage overall in the right situation. They also usually fire every 5 second so can be devastating in swarms. They will take more losses than missile fighters, but replacing those losses is often cheaper than replacing the missiles expended by the missile fighters. Finally, beam fighters are very good at defending fleets against hostile missile attack.

A mix of both is probably best, but if I had to take one or the other, I would take beam fighters every time.

Check out this campaign for an example of beam fighters in action.
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=12909.0

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The Academy / Fighter strategy
« Last post by legemaine on Today at 07:48:41 AM »
Hi all, another question

What's the current view re beam fighters - I've noticed over the years that typically this hasnt been seen particularly effective compared with missile carrying fighters - but I thought I saw some recent posts (cant find them now) that suggested that beam boats were more viable again. Just wanted to check the consensus before I started a carrier fleet strategy.

Also, when designing missiles for fighters to carry, would I be right in assuming that people generally designed them to be shorter range than ship borne variants - taking account of the distance a fighter would approach the target, or do people generally use the separation generated by the fighters to protect the main fleet

Thanks again for all your help
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The Academy / Re: Best route to mining Io
« Last post by Noriad on Yesterday at 02:20:01 PM »
Another possible strategy (I play conventional starts), which must be played from the beginning, is to combine civilian mining and regular colonies.
Initially, I only survey bodies that are good for colonization: Luna, Mars, Mercury, and possibly some of the larger gas giant moons.
At game start, I immediately start enlarging my naval shipyard and when it's big enough (roughly 3000 tons), I build a survey vessel with conventional rockets, conventional geosurvey equipment and a tiny cargo space. Slow and primitive but adequate for this task.
I then survey those few bodies, and if any has the potential to spawn a civilian mining operation, I leave it untouched and dump 2 infrastructure on an empty body. This unlocks the creation of civilian mining. Then I push my wealth income as high as feasible with financial centers and accompanying research, to increase the chance of triggering a civilian mining center. Once it is in place, which is why I initially restrict my initial surveys to places I want the mining colonies to spawn, I add a regular colony to it.
If you build a regular colony, no new Civilian mining centers can spawn. But once the first civilian mining center is in place, it will expand over time, adding up to the equivalent of hundreds of automines. Plus you get a free military unit to keep order.
Civilian mining centers spawn if the body contains Duranium or Gallicite, minimum 10,000 units with concentration 0.7 or more. Higher wealth income increases the spawn chance.
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The Academy / Re: Best route to mining Io
« Last post by legemaine on Yesterday at 10:47:51 AM »
Hi , thanks to all of you that took the time to reply to this thread.

I haven't researched Ark Modules yet, but I can see that this might well have been the optimum strategy. I currently have a bunch of terraformers heating up the surface and CC is now well below 6 and I hope to be below the magic 5 before long. Hence on this occasion I will probably go with a reducing the CC to a reasonable value by heating up the surface, getting the colony size to an acceptable level and then letting the civs pile in. I note the comment that this won't work so well with the next version with reduced trade good availability, but well, I'll do it differently next time!

Thanks again for the interesting insights

Legemaine
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The Academy / Re: Best route to mining Io
« Last post by nuclearslurpee on Yesterday at 10:37:53 AM »
Quote from: gpt3 on Yesterday at 10:09:19 AM
Here's an old detailed thread with worker count mechanics: https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=12258.0

Since Io's colony cost is 6.2, you will need to either use terraforming to get your CC below 5 or deploy orbital habitats. This is because the proportion of your population working in the manufacturing/mining sector will over time drift towards (25-5*colonyCost)%. This means that it is possible to have your worker pool shrink over time even as your population increases.
  • A 0 CC home world will eventually settle into 25% of its population as TN workers
  • A 2 CC plant will have 15% as TN workers
  • A 5 CC plant will have 0% as TN workers

A couple of implications which may be relevant for OP and others:
  • With a small amount of calculus, you can find that the peak manufacturing population occurs for a (total) population in billions of P = (0.76 - 0.04*C)^4, where C is the colony cost. For an Io colony cost of 6.2, this means the maximum manufacturing population will occur for a total population of about 69 million (nice!).
  • For a colony cost less than 5.0, once you reach a population of about 240 million the services sector hits a maximum of 70% and manufacturing population increases linearly with total population. This means that, in theory, growing a colony with C < 5.0 will eventually allow you to exceed the maximum manufacturing population from the previous point, although for higher colony costs this may not be economical and the "lower maximum" may be a more realistic target. I would say colony cost of 3.0 or 3.5 roughly marks this boundary, but it depends on how willing you are to invest in growing a population beyond 240 million.
  • A colony with C > 5.0 has a hard maximum manufacturing population, and you should not grow it beyond this point. In practice, you probably want to be within a couple million population in either direction and draw off pops/infrastructure from normal growth every so often to maintain the level. This rule applies for Io!
  • For a colony cost less than 1.5, manufacturing population will always increase with total population.
Since ark modules do not have any agricultural population, the rules work a little bit differently, but suffice to say since the colony cost factor disappears you will always gain manufacturing population when expanding an orbital (total) population. Since Ark Modules cost a bit more than 500 infrastructure per million population, this means that Ark Modules are probably the most cost-efficient way to support a population for a colony cost greater than 5.0; for lower colony costs it depends on the relative importance of the infrastructure costs vs improved population efficiency, but probably a colony cost of 4.0 is a good approximate break point as a rule of thumb. I would therefore recommend using orbital populations to colonize Io if you have researched and built Ark Modules.
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The Academy / Re: Best route to mining Io
« Last post by gpt3 on Yesterday at 10:09:19 AM »
Here's an old detailed thread with worker count mechanics: https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=12258.0

Since Io's colony cost is 6.2, you will need to either use terraforming to get your CC below 5 or deploy orbital habitats. This is because the proportion of your population working in the manufacturing/mining sector will over time drift towards (25-5*colonyCost)%. This means that it is possible to have your worker pool shrink over time even as your population increases.
  • A 0 CC home world will eventually settle into 25% of its population as TN workers
  • A 2 CC plant will have 15% as TN workers
  • A 5 CC plant will have 0% as TN workers
In the future in v2.6.0: https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=13463.msg169793#msg169793
  • The new "Colonization Pressure" mechanic means that your population will be reluctant to immigrate (and tempted to emigrate) if your CC is too high.
  • Trade good production has been drastically reduced, so you won't have as much free civilian infrastructure as before.
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