Aurora 4x
New Players => The Academy => Topic started by: L0ckAndL0ad on August 03, 2019, 10:30:12 AM
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Hi everyone!
It's my second campaign now, Year 28. First one ended fairly quickly with me getting nuked by an NPR that I semi-accidentally spawned in a nearby system and tried visiting their homeworld with my exploration ship. I do feel like I have a fairly decent understanding of the game mechanics, still, there are some things that I haven't figured out yet. I'm also yet to fight an actual war (the one where I'm not just a "nuke from orbit, cuz that's the only way to be sure" target), so I'm pretty sure my perspective will change later.
Anyway, here are the questions.
1. Active Sensor in passive mode. Does it work as a passive EM sensor? I get the impression that "EM sensor" is one of the components of the Active Sensor, but was unable to test it out yet. I do know that if you just put an Active Sensor on a ship, my sensor ratings (1/1/0/0) do not improve the same way as if I had an actual EM sensor installed. But I do have some ships out there with Active Sensor only and they do show some decent coverage of passive detection range in System Map screen.
In my current game, in all the systems that my NPR neighbor is active I have DST stations, so I can't really test it yet, but obviously, it would be great weight saving measure not to install EM sensor on a ship with an Active Sensor.
2. My NPR neighbor, which I decided not to attack, acts pretty bold by running around with 8-20Kt ships with actives on, camping Jump Gates in my Sol system and frequently buzzing Earth Space Flight Control Tower (but no admiral's daughters). But I struggle with finding any traces of his bases of operation, or their homeworld. I do know the AI doesn't need fuel or MSPs, and I did check every system they were seen in. . But no luck so far. There are still some unexplored JPs in other nearby systems, but there was no NPR activity in them whatsoever. Any tips? I know I just need to spend more time and explorer ships on this task. . . But I'd really appreciate any pointers here.
3. Is it okay to stop expanding facilities on Earth at some point? Would I still be competitive with the NPRs if I did? I keep spending resources on construction factories and such, but I do feel that I'm going to have to stop at some point. I'm kind of lazy with microing colonies and really happy to allow civilians do as many tasks as possible, including mining and hauling cargo, so I'm seeing every other planet as a mineral source and a place for my population to grow to, but as far as industry goes, I feel like defending and maintaining a single centralized industrial complex on Earth would be easier for me. So, how far should I push it?
4. I do know that there are some kind of ruins and other interesting things one can find in space, but I was wondering, what area of the UI should I look into to actually see if I found something. I've seen someone let's play video and a person only realized he found an anomaly only after creating a colony. Where exactly do you get the info about such findings?
Thanks!
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Hi everyone!
It's my second campaign now, Year 28. First one ended fairly quickly with me getting nuked by an NPR that I semi-accidentally spawned in a nearby system and tried visiting their homeworld with my exploration ship. I do feel like I have a fairly decent understanding of the game mechanics, still, there are some things that I haven't figured out yet. I'm also yet to fight an actual war (the one where I'm not just a "nuke from orbit, cuz that's the only way to be sure" target), so I'm pretty sure my perspective will change later.
Anyway, here are the questions.
1. Active Sensor in passive mode. Does it work as a passive EM sensor? I get the impression that "EM sensor" is one of the components of the Active Sensor, but was unable to test it out yet. I do know that if you just put an Active Sensor on a ship, my sensor ratings (1/1/0/0) do not improve the same way as if I had an actual EM sensor installed. But I do have some ships out there with Active Sensor only and they do show some decent coverage of passive detection range in System Map screen.
In my current game, in all the systems that my NPR neighbor is active I have DST stations, so I can't really test it yet, but obviously, it would be great weight saving measure not to install EM sensor on a ship with an Active Sensor.
2. My NPR neighbor, which I decided not to attack, acts pretty bold by running around with 8-20Kt ships with actives on, camping Jump Gates in my Sol system and frequently buzzing Earth Space Flight Control Tower (but no admiral's daughters). But I struggle with finding any traces of his bases of operation, or their homeworld. I do know the AI doesn't need fuel or MSPs, and I did check every system they were seen in. . But no luck so far. There are still some unexplored JPs in other nearby systems, but there was no NPR activity in them whatsoever. Any tips? I know I just need to spend more time and explorer ships on this task. . . But I'd really appreciate any pointers here.
3. Is it okay to stop expanding facilities on Earth at some point? Would I still be competitive with the NPRs if I did? I keep spending resources on construction factories and such, but I do feel that I'm going to have to stop at some point. I'm kind of lazy with microing colonies and really happy to allow civilians do as many tasks as possible, including mining and hauling cargo, so I'm seeing every other planet as a mineral source and a place for my population to grow to, but as far as industry goes, I feel like defending and maintaining a single centralized industrial complex on Earth would be easier for me. So, how far should I push it?
4. I do know that there are some kind of ruins and other interesting things one can find in space, but I was wondering, what area of the UI should I look into to actually see if I found something. I've seen someone let's play video and a person only realized he found an anomaly only after creating a colony. Where exactly do you get the info about such findings?
Thanks!
1. Active sensors do not have a passive mode. Are you sure it is showing passive range instead of active range? EM sensors only detect enabled active sensors, enabled shields, and some planetary facilities.
2. Some spoilers don't have populated colonies. You will need TH sensors to find their outposts.
3. Population will eventually become your production bottleneck. Unless you've increased the difficulty the AI eventually won't be able to keep up with you.
4. The System Map window's Display 2 tab has a pane that shows known ruins and wrecks. Geosurvey ships put an alert in your event log when they find anomalies.
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1. Active sensors do not act as EM sensors. I'm not sure what is going on with the system map rings, but it might be showing the range at which that ship would be detected by a particular strength of EM sensor.
2. NPRs behave like that pretty regularly, so that's not unusual. One thing you might do is try to find any jump gates you didn't construct and follow them backwards, since NPRs tend to be kind of crazy about throwing them up everywhere. Other than that, you'll just have to keep exploring. If you ever get trade access with the NPR you might see a freighter and be able to follow it, but it seems like they might be too far away for that.
3. There are very few reasons to stop expanding your infrastructure, from a min-max perspective. Unless you are limited by population or minerals, you will always want more production capacity. On the other hand, NPRs tend to play pretty sub-optimally, so there probably isn't too much of a reason to keep going once you feel secure in your powerbase.
4. For ruins, the "Display 2" tab on the system map has a list of all known ruins. For anomalies, you will probably have to use the System View (F9) and check each system individually.
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I like to make war pay for war, which means that I go on the offensive once I can exploit a victory. That means troop transports, salvage ships, and boarding pods.
Also, while a given BP in missile ships will generally defeat a similar amount of beam ships, if you are planning on fighting a long series of battles, a missile fleet has a serious tempo problem. So go for missile ships to get yourself that quick security, that fast early win, but after that I suggest not expanding your ordnance factories much, and focus on the best beam and PD fleet you can get.
At a certain point, you are going to get more economic expansion from Military Academies and Ground Force Training centers than from anything else, from construction brigades exploiting ruins to ground forces capturing enemy warships and commercial shipping and colonies.
I strongly suggest that you always make a colony, even a zero pop colony, on any anomaly world, and rename that anomaly body after the system and the type of anomaly it is, to make it easier to find later.
When exploring, always have some kind of sensor watch on the jump points you have gone through, whether that is sensor buoys (missiles with no engines but have sensors), or picket ships, or commercial maintenance sensor satellites. A 10-15 ton ship has enough sensors to detect a ship right on top of it, which is good enough for jump point surveillance, or you can have a more capable sensor with a 1 HS or smaller active sensor, an engineering system, and no military systems. I have always have survey support carriers that can drop jump point monitor stations as my survey fleet advances. I place on both sides of the jump point, just to be sure, and also to RP a comm system that allows me to send and receive messages all over my empire.
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Oh, thank you all for answers!
Yeah, I guess I've mistaken DST station's sensors with ship's. Additional testing shows only tiny (base rating of 1, I guess) passive sensor range on my Active Sensor only SWACS FAC. I really hoped I would be able to get away with just using one big sensor. . . . Wishful thinking. Oh well. .
It's year 34 now and I've gotten Allied status with my NPR neighbor (they call themselves "Union of Gun", and literally have guns on their hands, kinda scary looking robots), who now sends me his transponder codes. Was able to track his ships this way a couple of systems further, but still no luck. I really need some faster exploration vessels :)
Yeah, I'm thinking about missiles and guns a lot, but I'm also a Carrier Warfare fanboy, and really like standoff strikes, so missiles are on my priority list for tech advances. I did make a fast Gauss fighter already though, to accompany my missile armed strike fighters, so I'm gonna do more evaluation of different weapons & tactics further down the road.
I do hope for a peaceful time, though. I thought to myself that if this game was for real, I should've attacked my GUN neighbors long time ago, right when they approached Earth with a 6+ ship fleet and actives on. But I read about the AI by that point and had a backup save, and decided that I'm more pro-peace (while still carrying a big stick) than pro-shoot-everything-ask-questions-later.
And seeing how easily my Earth got nuked on my first playthrough, I should be reaaaly careful now.
Got a couple of new questions btw:
5. If I get into the war, is there a way to make the enemy capitulate without me destroying everything he has? Is there a war score or something like that, just like Diplomatic Score? Or is Diplo Score used for war too? How it works?
6. Say, I have a fleet with multiple Jump Drive equipped ships. Does their max jump squad size equal a total of all drives, or do I need to separate it into multiple smaller TGs?
Thank you all again!
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5. If I get into the war, is there a way to make the enemy capitulate without me destroying everything he has? Is there a war score or something like that, just like Diplomatic Score? Or is Diplo Score used for war too? How it works?
6. Say, I have a fleet with multiple Jump Drive equipped ships. Does their max jump squad size equal a total of all drives, or do I need to separate it into multiple smaller TGs?
5. You can destroy almost everything they have.
Basically, if you kill everything that can fight, then the things that can't fight will surrender to you. But it is far more common to only think you have killed everything that can fight, and then see enemies fleeing instead of surrendering. At this point, you can safely assume that there are units and/or colonies left to defeat.
6. Nope; separate.
You will need to assign ships to jump squadrons while paying attention to max ship size and squadron transit numbers. Aurora has basically zero automation to help you with this, so you should plan from the start of your navy which ships can be moved by which JumpShips.
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I see. Thanks!
I'm about to start building my 3rd Generation DDGs. Is this a normal ship for Year 40? Besides the fact that it's multirole and thus not compatible with autofire :) It is intended to work in groups of 2 (light escort for things like UNREP transports/tankers), 4-6 (semi-independent TGs with bigger CG cruisers, going into long range missile action) or 8-12 (escorting fleet carriers and staying away from trouble unless pressed).
Cole class Destroyer, Guided Missile 10 000 tons 266 Crew 1978.82 BP TCS 200 TH 1000 EM 300
5000 km/s Armour 4-41 Shields 10-300 Sensors 22/22/0/0 Damage Control Rating 22 PPV 34.27
Maint Life 4.73 Years MSP 1484 AFR 66% IFR 0.9% 1YR 109 5YR 1629 Max Repair 500 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 60 months Spare Berths 2
Magazine 358
1000 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (1) Power 1000 Fuel Use 43.67% Signature 1000 Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 500 000 Litres Range 20.6 billion km (47 days at full power)
Delta R300/300 Shields (4) Total Fuel Cost 50 Litres per hour (1 200 per day)
Twin Gauss Cannon R3-67 Turret (1x6) Range 30 000km TS: 16000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 3 ROF 5 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Gunnery FCS 32K/16K (1) Max Range: 64 000 km TS: 16000 km/s 84 69 53 37 22 6 0 0 0 0
AMM-1-10s Missile Launcher (8) Missile Size 1 Rate of Fire 10
ASM-6-720s Missile Launcher (8) Missile Size 6 Rate of Fire 720
AMM FCS 1.2/3.9/11M (2) Range 11.1m km Resolution 1
ASM FCS 8Kt/175M (1) Range 175.3m km Resolution 160
AMM-12-3M Magic (160) Speed: 25 600 km/s End: 2m Range: 3m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 290/174/87
ASM-62-150M Sunburn (32) Speed: 23 500 km/s End: 106.4m Range: 150m km WH: 9 Size: 6 TH: 164/98/49
AMM Radar 1/3.3/9.2M (1) GPS 84 Range 9.2m km MCR 1.0m km Resolution 1
RAD 8Kt/204M (1) GPS 23520 Range 204.5m km Resolution 160
Thermal Sensor TH2-22 (1) Sensitivity 22 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 22m km
EM Detection Sensor EM2-22 (1) Sensitivity 22 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 22m km
ECCM-1 (1) ECM 10
Also, I'm preparing to start making 100Kton carriers (aiming at 45000 Hangar capacity), but struggle to decide between future fighters. I'm gonna go with 4x Size 4 (WH4) armed strike fighter, but not sure about the firing range. I love to put small radars on every fighter for adhoc scouting capability, independence and redundancy and currently aim for 50M (@7500-8000t signature) km missile range for that fighter.
But when it comes to beam fighters (that I'd like to use for PD, anti-fighter and finisher roles) I'm divided between going 2x17% gauss cannons (the way my Gen 1 fighters were built) or try 1 Railgun (haven't even researched it yet). Or. . . what about Mesons and Lasers?
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I'm about to start building my 3rd Generation DDGs. Is this a normal ship for Year 40? Besides the fact that it's multirole and thus not compatible with autofire :) It is intended to work in groups of 2 (light escort for things like UNREP transports/tankers), 4-6 (semi-independent TGs with bigger CG cruisers, going into long range missile action) or 8-12 (escorting fleet carriers and staying away from trouble unless pressed).
I'm not a fan of giganto-engines on ships expecting to be shot at. Giganto-engines make giganto-explosions when they take damage, cost giganto-amounts-of-RP to research, and cost giganto-amounts-of-MSP to repair. Consider splitting it up into multiple smaller engines?
The active scanners are also problematic. The long-range scanner is fine, but the AMM scanner is too short-ranged to provide anti-fighter coverage, and it's also quite short-ranged against missiles (that's the MCR range - any missile size 6 and below gets detected at MCR range). I'd try and triple the size of the AMM scanner.
Also, I'm preparing to start making 100Kton carriers (aiming at 45000 Hangar capacity), but struggle to decide between future fighters. I'm gonna go with 4x Size 4 (WH4) armed strike fighter, but not sure about the firing range.
I wonder if it might be better to go for a 3x Size 6 strike fighter, instead, and reuse your Sunburn missiles. It'd increase the payload from 16 total warhead to 27, and allow your carriers to serve double-duty as colliers for their escorts.
I love to put small radars on every fighter for adhoc scouting capability, independence and redundancy
Try to keep this tendency under control. A lone dedicated sensor fighter will have way more sensor capability than any number of ad-hoc craft.
But when it comes to beam fighters (that I'd like to use for PD, anti-fighter and finisher roles) I'm divided between going 2x17% gauss cannons (the way my Gen 1 fighters were built) or try 1 Railgun (haven't even researched it yet). Or. . . what about Mesons and Lasers?
Railguns are good for PD work, but you have to assume hostile fighters are at least as fast as your own, so they fall prey to being outranged by lasers. Gauss guns (on fighters) get outdone by railguns until their RoF multiplier catches up, but if a gauss gun is all that will fit, then that's what I use. Mesons are very much an "all mesons, or none" choice; mesons don't help other weapons chew through defenses, and any holes from e.g. missiles don't help mesons do any more damage.
I prefer lasers for fighter weapons - the range lets them kite shorter-ranged opponents, and the damage boost at short range lets them deal devastating finishing blows. This does, however, reduce their ability to mass PD - they do better as a forward screen, where they can fire on missiles both coming and going.
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I disagree with almost everything DeMatt has to say.
A: I research and build the biggest engine I can, and use it (when necessary, in multiples) for almost everything.
B: While I hate the 'standard Aurora tactic' of dedicated sensor ships, the inability to turn on some, but not all, of a ship's active sensors means I restrict large, long-range actives to one or two unit designs.
C: Small craft are the easiest parts of a carrier to modify (or replace), so I recommend experimenting. Build many different designs, and even variations of designs, and play with them to see what works.
D: Sensor fighters are awesome! My empire small craft always start out as sensor platforms, and only get aremd later when we 'realize' that might be a good idea. Being able to send out 6-12 fighters to sweep the area in front of a task force is great.
E: As with most things, when my empire starts to arm fighters it starts with the smallest possible weapon, so as not to compromise the platform's recon mission. The weapons slowly grow larger until the empire decides to split into dedicated fighters and scouts.
F: I swap around my fighter weapon of choice from game to game, so as not to grow bored with the same old thing. Any choice can be effective -- but being effective means adapting fighter tactics to the strengths of the chosen weapon. For this, I recommend lots of experimentation.
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I'm not a fan of giganto-engines on ships expecting to be shot at. Giganto-engines make giganto-explosions when they take damage, cost giganto-amounts-of-RP to research, and cost giganto-amounts-of-MSP to repair. Consider splitting it up into multiple smaller engines?
Yeah, I read a few threads on this topic and I get the idea. But then I looked up wiki and it says:
The chance of destroying a component is calculated by:
Incoming Damage / Component HTKMeaning 2 smaller engines are twice as likely to get destroyed (12 vs 25), while they take the same amount of space on the ship (= same chance to get hit). Am I getting this right? Also, bigger engines, while cost twice as much to repair, are 25% more fuel efficient, which also saves weight and resources.
As for combat situations, I predict that a ship that gets hit in combat will have to be detached and taken off the frontline anyway, because it'll slow down the whole TG. When it comes to 10Kt ship, there will be enough MSP to repair it with damage control to start to get moving again. Bigger ships will have at least 2 of such size 50 engines anyway.
That's my current rationale. Of course, I'll need to experience more combat to evaluate this. But bigger HTK is the main advantage, IMO. Or am I missing something?
The active scanners are also problematic. The long-range scanner is fine, but the AMM scanner is too short-ranged to provide anti-fighter coverage, and it's also quite short-ranged against missiles (that's the MCR range - any missile size 6 and below gets detected at MCR range). I'd try and triple the size of the AMM scanner.
Uhm. . Yeah, I downsized the sensors from previous 1. 2M km to 1M km (vs MS6) to save weight. I was trying to fit everything into 10Kt. Was really hard to do, considering previous generation was 12. 5Kt.
But is 1M km really not enough? My current missiles are 25000 km/s, and that's 250K km per 10 sec.
I should point out that I plan on introducing anti-fighter capabilities into my fleet with introduction of 20-30Kt cruiser. I'm thinning about dedicated anti-fighter radars and FCs and probably longer ranged size 2 missile. How far out should I be ready to engage fighters?
I wonder if it might be better to go for a 3x Size 6 strike fighter, instead, and reuse your Sunburn missiles. It'd increase the payload from 16 total warhead to 27, and allow your carriers to serve double-duty as colliers for their escorts.
I measured it'd be either 4x MS4 or 2x MS6, not 3x MS6. Also, I do active radars on my strike fighters. Previous generation had 50M km range. 150? Would be really hard to do right now. Also, bigger volley = easier to overcome PD.
But yeah, I do LOVE to share common equipment and ammo as much as possible, so you are totally right to point it out. I'll keep trying to fit it in.
Try to keep this tendency under control. A lone dedicated sensor fighter will have way more sensor capability than any number of ad-hoc craft.
I do have a dedicated SWACS FAC (actually, the only type of FACs I intend to use). Previous generation was equipped with ~300-350M km active sensor. But what if they all get destroyed? I do get the idea of such hyper weight efficiency, I really do. But I'm not comfortable enough to gamble with this nor do I have too much space for sensor only ships. 2Ktons of hangar space is already too much, I'm thinking about trying to fit it on a 500 ton fighter. Maybe with later tech I'll squeeze it in. . I hope to.
Railguns are good for PD work, but you have to assume hostile fighters are at least as fast as your own, so they fall prey to being outranged by lasers. Gauss guns (on fighters) get outdone by railguns until their RoF multiplier catches up, but if a gauss gun is all that will fit, then that's what I use. Mesons are very much an "all mesons, or none" choice; mesons don't help other weapons chew through defenses, and any holes from e. g. missiles don't help mesons do any more damage.
I prefer lasers for fighter weapons - the range lets them kite shorter-ranged opponents, and the damage boost at short range lets them deal devastating finishing blows. This does, however, reduce their ability to mass PD - they do better as a forward screen, where they can fire on missiles both coming and going.
Yeah, lasers do appeal to me more than anything at the moment because of range, but I fear I'm not tech-ed enough for them yet.
Also, I'm experiencing problems with fitting my new 100Kt carrier. Won't be able to have 45Kt of hangar space. 32, if I'm lucky. Fuel, ammo, MSPs and spare crew quarters take too much space. And 10Kt jump drive. But that's kind of a given for such a big ship.
The thing is, maybe I'll have to downsize the fighters a bit.
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Any vessel that goes into combat should have at least 2 engines so that in case of battle damage, it doesn't get instantly marooned. Losing 50% of your speed hurts but at least you can still limp forward while doing damage control. Big engines save fuel and act as damage sponges due to their big HTK.
Purely for PD, flak barges are better - pound-for-pound - at equal tech levels against fighters. PD fighters do work, so it's up to you. Beam fighters (outside of PD role) are devilishly difficult to get working effectively but as Father Tim said, don't let that discourage you but keep experimenting with different things.
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C: Small craft are the easiest parts of a carrier to modify (or replace), so I recommend experimenting. Build many different designs, and even variations of designs, and play with them to see what works.
D: Sensor fighters are awesome! My empire small craft always start out as sensor platforms, and only get aremd later when we 'realize' that might be a good idea. Being able to send out 6-12 fighters to sweep the area in front of a task force is great.
E: As with most things, when my empire starts to arm fighters it starts with the smallest possible weapon, so as not to compromise the platform's recon mission. The weapons slowly grow larger until the empire decides to split into dedicated fighters and scouts.
F: I swap around my fighter weapon of choice from game to game, so as not to grow bored with the same old thing. Any choice can be effective -- but being effective means adapting fighter tactics to the strengths of the chosen weapon. For this, I recommend lots of experimentation.
Good old WW2 carrier aircraft (a big fan!) search pattern still works in Aurora with shorter ranged radar equipped fighters, doesn't it? Great to hear! Would be somewhat troublesome to set up, though, probably, but still. . . Are there any automation tips for this? Beside the usual divide/merge TG and orders broadcasting.
I would like to experiment more. The biggest advantage of fighters that I value is that they can be produced in all shapes and forms without a need to retool the shipyard, so I can try out as many things as I want. And combat experience is the best one out there.
Thank you!
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My initial foray into building fighter scouts was because I wanted a smooth transition to building strikefighters, and didn't want a bunch of idle fighter factories waiting for the day I got whatever technologies I deemed critical for strikefighters.
I figured it would be an evolution paralleling the development of flight, first used for scouting and artillery spotting, and only later becoming a serious platform for delivering ordnance.
And then I decided that the FAC was a better platform for missiles than the fighter, and never developed 'strikefighters'. But I had all these fighter factories, and railgun fighters were REALLY handy when I had utter crap for sensor scientists and needed a PD fire control.
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Yeah, I read a few threads on this topic and I get the idea. But then I looked up wiki and it says:
The chance of destroying a component is calculated by:
Incoming Damage / Component HTKMeaning 2 smaller engines are twice as likely to get destroyed (12 vs 25), while they take the same amount of space on the ship (= same chance to get hit). Am I getting this right? Also, bigger engines, while cost twice as much to repair, are 25% more fuel efficient, which also saves weight and resources.
As for combat situations, I predict that a ship that gets hit in combat will have to be detached and taken off the frontline anyway, because it'll slow down the whole TG. When it comes to 10Kt ship, there will be enough MSP to repair it with damage control to start to get moving again. Bigger ships will have at least 2 of such size 50 engines anyway.
That's my current rationale. Of course, I'll need to experience more combat to evaluate this. But bigger HTK is the main advantage, IMO. Or am I missing something?
Bigger HTK per engine. Total HTK stays more-or-less at HS/2, unless you go for 1 HS engines. So, if one engine is 25 HTK, two smaller engines would be 12 + 12 HTK, five smaller engines would be 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 HTK, et cetera.
The larger engine is more resistant to damage, both individually (per engine) and as a unit (per 50 HS). But it's more expensive to repair, takes longer to repair, and while it's damaged the ship's not going anywhere.
Uhm.. Yeah, I downsized the sensors from previous 1.2M km to 1M km (vs MS6) to save weight. I was trying to fit everything into 10Kt. Was really hard to do, considering previous generation was 12.5Kt.
But is 1M km really not enough? My current missiles are 25000 km/s, and that's 250K km per 10 sec.
The way I see it, is that your Magic AMMs have 3Mkm range, and therefore have excess fuel versus what you can actually target. Similarly, a hostile missile (of equal tech) would cross your detection envelope in a mere 40 seconds - allowing your destroyer only four AMM salvos back at it before it hits. Consider the following scenario:
Captain Lock glared at his display. The hostile contact - a ship equal in size to his Cole, if the sensor readouts were correct - had been content to stooge around near the limits of sensor range. He dearly wanted to fire Sunburns at it, but every time he'd tried to close in, the bandit had turned to keep the distance open - leading to their current stalemate, with both his ship and the enemy idling their engines to save fuel.
Then, an alarm sounded. "Vampire, VAMPIRE! Sixteen missiles inbound, 40 seconds to impact!" yelled the sensor operator.
OOC: It's probably conservative to assume 20% of a ship could be hangar space - which for 10kt ships, gives 2kt of hangars, space for four 500-ton fighters. Let's say they're your 4x4MSP design.
Captain Lock's mind whirled, as computers and gunners reacted. Sixteen vampires in four four-missile salvos. 40 seconds let his AMM launchers fire eight half-salvos of their own, totalling 32 AMMs in space before they hit. The vampires looked pretty similar to his own Sunburn missiles, which meant each AMM had a roughly 40% chance of knocking down its target. 32 times 40% gave 13 intercepts... three leakers - at those speeds, his point-defense gauss turret might stop all three, it could put enough lead downrange...
...if he fired exactly enough AMMs at each salvo to kill it - too many AMMs in one launch, and he wouldn't have enough to stop the others; too few in the first launch, and he'd have to spend a second trying to knock down the survivors.
It was going to be close...
OOC: to be fair, the Cole does have the shields, and Captain Lock doesn't yet know that these are smaller "fighter" missiles rather than his own powerful Sunburns, so he could tank two missiles without taking damage. And since they are "fighter" missiles, he doesn't have to worry about an immediate followup attack, and would have time for his shields to regenerate. But, given what he does know, can he afford to assume that?
My reaction that the antimissile scanner should be triple the size is mostly to do with matching your AMMs' range. Nevertheless, that is probably the simplest way to improve your point defense - our heroic Captain Lock would not be so worried if he could fire a fifth AMM salvo, thanks to detecting the vampires at 1.2Mkm instead of 1.0Mkm.
I should point out that I plan on introducing anti-fighter capabilities into my fleet with introduction of 20-30Kt cruiser. I'm thinning about dedicated anti-fighter radars and FCs and probably longer ranged size 2 missile. How far out should I be ready to engage fighters?
It's not so much the fighters, as the missiles they can fire. 9Mkm is pretty good for keeping fighters away; 1Mkm is not so good for keeping missiles away.
I measured it'd be either 4x MS4 or 2x MS6, not 3x MS6. Also, I do active radars on my strike fighters. Previous generation had 50M km range. 150? Would be really hard to do right now. Also, bigger volley = easier to overcome PD.
But yeah, I do LOVE to share common equipment and ammo as much as possible, so you are totally right to point it out. I'll keep trying to fit it in.
This is one area where the fighter's fire controls and sensors would NOT match the missile's capabilities. While the "right" number would depend on your specific opponent, I think 50Mkm would be plenty of range for the strike fighter's fire control. (50Mkm, minus 50% for ECM, is still 25Mkm, what I think would be comfortably out of AMM range.)
I think that's another reason to drop the active sensors from the strike fighters, and instead design a dedicated sensor fighter.
I do have a dedicated SWACS FAC (actually, the only type of FACs I intend to use). Previous generation was equipped with ~300-350M km active sensor. But what if they all get destroyed? I do get the idea of such hyper weight efficiency, I really do. But I'm not comfortable enough to gamble with this nor do I have too much space for sensor only ships. 2Ktons of hangar space is already too much, I'm thinking about trying to fit it on a 500 ton fighter. Maybe with later tech I'll squeeze it in.. I hope to.
I feel that a sensor fighter's job (or that of a SWACS FAC - swack sfack? :P) isn't that of general surveillance. Instead, it's "illumination" - I know that there's an enemy in this general location, go over there and pinpoint it.
In light of that, a 300Mkm active sensor is WAY overkill for a sensor fighter. 50Mkm would be more than I would be willing to spend for, but is a match for your intended fighter missile ranges.
Keep in mind the way resolution works - larger targets are detected at the same range as the rated resolution, but smaller targets are detected at closer ranges:
target range = max range * (target resolution / sensor resolution) ^ 2To put this into perspective, the Cole's 160-resolution, 204.5Mkm search sensor? It'll detect a size-10 fighter at 0.8M kilometres. A missile would be able to doodle on that sensor's dish, being only detected at 719 (yes, that's seven hundred and nineteen - no "k" or "M") kilometres.
So you'll need to decide whether the sensor fighter should be able to pick up missiles (res-1) or fighters (res-10... unless you know how big your opponent's fighters are), before you start spending tonnage on giant "map the star system" scanners.
It's also worth noting that fighters are much simpler to replace than FACs. The former, you just build in the factory; the latter, you have to retool a shipyard to change them.
Also, I'm experiencing problems with fitting my new 100Kt carrier. Won't be able to have 45Kt of hangar space. 32, if I'm lucky. Fuel, ammo, MSPs and spare crew quarters take too much space. And 10Kt jump drive. But that's kind of a given for such a big ship.
I feel 30% hangar space is quite adequate for a general-purpose carrier. A fast "assault" or "battle" carrier would probably be closer to 20%.
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DeMatt
My original intent for 3M km AMM range was to be able to fire at larger missiles earlier, because current sensors allow it. But you're totally right, I'll try to squeeze a new AMM FCS and radar in, though it's going to be really hard. Still, even 1. 25-1. 5M would be better, yeah.
Is it okay to let go ECCM-1 to free up space? I feel my ASM FCS (the one I intended to use ECCM on) is already boosted to counter enemy ECM (175M vs 150M max launch distance of my ASM missile).
In the mean time, I've spent couple of hours fiddling with new generation fighter designs. I do understand that all of them being slow and having active senors will most likely be frowned upon by the audience, but I really want to have it. Here are the resulting prototypes (Year 43 now):
Strike Fighter - Anti-Ship role (missile loadout for presentation purposes only!)
Can attack slow big ships with 4x WH9 missiles, and smaller faster targets with 4x WH4. Can target FACs at 2M km, 250t fighters at 100K km (and, I suppose, 500t @ 250K-ish?).
My AI neighbor still flies all of his ships @ 1400 km/s, btw.
YF/A-3 class Fighter 465 tons 3 Crew 132.8 BP TCS 9.29 TH 96 EM 0
10333 km/s Armour 1-5 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 2.4
Maint Life 2.67 Years MSP 18 AFR 17% IFR 0.2% 1YR 4 5YR 54 Max Repair 48 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months Spare Berths 1
Magazine 16
96 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (1) Power 96 Fuel Use 274.36% Signature 96 Exp 20%
Fuel Capacity 15 000 Litres Range 2.1 billion km (56 hours at full power)
MS4-BX Missile Launcher (4) Missile Size 4 Hangar Reload 30 minutes MF Reload 5 hours
ASM FCS(F) 5Kt/55M (1) Range 55.4m km Resolution 100
AFM-41 Funny Man (2) Speed: 35 200 km/s End: 23.7m Range: 50.1m km WH: 4 Size: 4 TH: 246/147/73
ASM-41 Falling Star (2) Speed: 20 800 km/s End: 40.4m Range: 50.4m km WH: 9 Size: 4 TH: 138/83/41
RAD(F)-5Kt/51M (1) GPS 4725 Range 52.0m km Resolution 100
Fighter - PD/Anti-Fighter/Finisher role
No clue which one is better, really.
YF-4G class Fighter 467 tons 4 Crew 133.2 BP TCS 9.34 TH 128 EM 0
13704 km/s Armour 1-5 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 3
Maint Life 2.28 Years MSP 18 AFR 17% IFR 0.2% 1YR 5 5YR 70 Max Repair 64 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months Spare Berths 0
128 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (1) Power 128 Fuel Use 271.53% Signature 128 Exp 20%
Fuel Capacity 15 000 Litres Range 2.1 billion km (43 hours at full power)
Gauss Cannon R3-50 (1x3) Range 30 000km TS: 13704 km/s Accuracy Modifier 50% RM 3 ROF 5 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S00.5 32-4000 (FTR) (1) Max Range: 64 000 km TS: 16000 km/s 84 69 53 37 22 6 0 0 0 0
AMM Radar 250K/2.3M (1) GPS 21 Range 2.3m km MCR 252k km Resolution 1
YF-4L class Fighter 497 tons 4 Crew 145.4 BP TCS 9.94 TH 128 EM 0
12877 km/s Armour 1-5 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 3
Maint Life 2.16 Years MSP 18 AFR 19% IFR 0.3% 1YR 5 5YR 77 Max Repair 64 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months Spare Berths 0
128 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (1) Power 128 Fuel Use 271.53% Signature 128 Exp 20%
Fuel Capacity 15 000 Litres Range 2.0 billion km (43 hours at full power)
10cm C3 Ultraviolet Laser (1) Range 64 000km TS: 12877 km/s Power 3-3 RM 4 ROF 5 3 3 3 3 2 2 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S00.5 32-4000 (FTR) (1) Max Range: 64 000 km TS: 16000 km/s 84 69 53 37 22 6 0 0 0 0
Stellarator Fusion Reactor PW3 (1) Total Power Output 3 Armour 0 Exp 5%
AMM Radar 250K/2.3M (1) GPS 21 Range 2.3m km MCR 252k km Resolution 1
YF-4R class Fighter 497 tons 4 Crew 135.4 BP TCS 9.94 TH 128 EM 0
12877 km/s Armour 1-5 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 3
Maint Life 2.2 Years MSP 17 AFR 19% IFR 0.3% 1YR 5 5YR 71 Max Repair 64 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months Spare Berths 0
128 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (1) Power 128 Fuel Use 271.53% Signature 128 Exp 20%
Fuel Capacity 15 000 Litres Range 2.0 billion km (43 hours at full power)
10cm Railgun V2/C3 (1x4) Range 20 000km TS: 12877 km/s Power 3-3 RM 2 ROF 5 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S00.5 32-4000 (FTR) (1) Max Range: 64 000 km TS: 16000 km/s 84 69 53 37 22 6 0 0 0 0
Stellarator Fusion Reactor PW3 (1) Total Power Output 3 Armour 0 Exp 5%
AMM Radar 250K/2.3M (1) GPS 21 Range 2.3m km MCR 252k km Resolution 1
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I do understand that all of them being slow and having active senors will most likely be frowned upon by the audience, but I really want to have it.
It's important to remember - when you're being flooded under (sometimes) conflicting advice from other players - that it's YOUR game and nobody else's. Having the most efficient systems possible is useless if it kills your interest in the game. Obviously it's important and useful to understand how the various systems and mechanics work, but don't force yourself to abandon something you want to try out just because it's inefficient. You're not playing a competitive multiplayer game with a cash prize.
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I do understand that all of them being slow and having active senors will most likely be frowned upon by the audience, but I really want to have it.
It's important to remember - when you're being flooded under (sometimes) conflicting advise from other players - that it's YOUR game and nobody else's. Having the most efficient systems possible is useless if it kills your interest in the game. Obviously it's important and useful to understand how the various systems and mechanics work, but don't force yourself to abandon something you want to try out just because it's inefficient. You're not playing a competitive multiplayer game with a cash prize.
Completely agree - this is not intended as a min-max game with a 'correct' strategy. The only person who needs to be happy with your designs is you. Just have fun playing around.
Here is my current AAR. The intention of the designs is role-play an Imperial Navy fleet from Warhammer 40K. All the designs have that as the primary goal, regardless of whether they are 'efficient'.
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10441.0
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He-he. Yeah, thank you Steve and others for the opportunity to enjoy this game :) I've been playing it for couple of weeks now, every chance I get, even during my morning breakfast before work, and frequently reading forums/wiki/reddit during the work day itself (nobody should find out!). It's been a blast so far! Awesome work!
Speaking of not min-maxing. . . I'm done with designing my first large 100Kt carrier. And it looks awful logistics wise. It is very MSP and fuel inefficient. My first, smaller carrier (35Kt size, 8Kt hangar space) requires five times less and has twice as small AFR percentage (300 vs 600). 37b km for 9M litres of fuel is going to cost me A LOT. The new carrier is twice as fast though. . . I may have to tune it down to 2500-3000 km/s. . .
Enterprise class Carrier 100 000 tons 2266 Crew 20982.4 BP TCS 2000 TH 3500 EM 0
5000 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 4-191 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 150 PPV 0
Maint Life 2.54 Years MSP 17048 AFR 615% IFR 8.5% 1YR 3690 5YR 55347 Max Repair 3466 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 60 months Flight Crew Berths 298
Flag Bridge Hangar Deck Capacity 32000 tons Magazine 1208
J100000(3-50) Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 100000 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
1000 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (TR35%) (10) Power 1000 Fuel Use 43.67% Signature 350 Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 9 180 000 Litres Range 37.8 billion km (87 days at full power)
CIWS-160 (2x6) Range 1000 km TS: 16000 km/s ROF 5 Base 50% To Hit
ECM 10
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Not a fan of the beam fighter's active sensor. You will have massive duplication of it, and I think you are better off with redundant dedicated fighter scouts with larger sensors.
Having a .1 HS active anti-ship sensor would allow them to go after civilian shipping independently, but otherwise, you are most likely deploying these in a combined squadron.
The crew endurance of the Enterprise is a bit excessive. Unless you are engaged in long term defensive operations at a jump point, you rarely need more than 12 months crew endurance on a military ship.
Picket ships, who have to stay guarding a jump point or enemy planet for long periods of time are different matters.
That magazine seems a little small. That is one reload for box launcher fighters, and that is it? Of course, you could have other support ships, colliers, tankers, etc... covering for that.
The ECM-10 gives a pretty minor advantage, but for a large ship, it is an okay investment. It will make the difference rarely, but again, it doesn't cost much compared to the rest of the ship.
ECCM is vital on beam ships, but only becomes important on missile ships around ECCM 4 or 5, and then only if you have large missile fire controls.
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Not a fan of the beam fighter's active sensor. You will have massive duplication of it, and I think you are better off with redundant dedicated fighter scouts with larger sensors.
Having a . 1 HS active anti-ship sensor would allow them to go after civilian shipping independently, but otherwise, you are most likely deploying these in a combined squadron.
Would you or someone else please write down what a likely fighter combat scenario would look like? I'm yet to enter any serious combat so I'm clueless here. The way I see it:
AAM radar range is rather small vs small missiles, so sensor fighter needs to fly either at the same TG or very close to non-radar fighters. Say, you use 10 gun fighters + 2 radar-equipped fighters per squadron. Missiles start flying, or enemy starts flying, and everyone targets radar equipped fighters. Couple of missiles or lucky enemy fighters get through and both radar fighters explode. This happens 1 bn km away from the carrier. Closest radar ships are ASM resolution focused and can't help with small targets. So now 10 of the fighters are either also dead, or useless.
OR you need even more dedicated radar fighters, which makes the whole concept of efficient space allocation moot.
What am I missing?
The crew endurance of the Enterprise is a bit excessive. Unless you are engaged in long term defensive operations at a jump point, you rarely need more than 12 months crew endurance on a military ship.
Uhm, yeah, I value endurance and multi-role capabilities (and other means of logistical benefits) on strategic level very highly. But even then, I tried lowering it and it did not make much difference anyway.
Also, at current speeds, I feel like 1 year is very small timeframe for any sort of mission except for fighting exclusively at Sol.
That magazine seems a little small. That is one reload for box launcher fighters, and that is it? Of course, you could have other support ships, colliers, tankers, etc. . . covering for that.
Uhm, I plan on having 3x12 = 36 strike fighters and 2x12 = 24 gun fighters. 36x4x4=576, one load. I have 1208, which means two loads. Not much, but that's 4 tons of armored ammo magazines already. That's 3 strikes in total, if we include starting loadout on docked fighters.
But yeah, carriers are nothing without support ships. Those are always in my mind and will be following combat TGs nearby. Though, I do think I'll go slow on auxiliary ships. My current ones are 2500m/s. I intend lowering my battleline speed to 3200 km/s currently. There are no AIs nearby that I'm aware of. The one I know, my bold and strange ally, always flies at 1400 km/s for some reason. The AI that nuked my previous Earth in first campaign around the same year was moving at 3K. I think I should be fine for now with 3200 battleline and 2500 on supports, am I right?
The ECM-10 gives a pretty minor advantage, but for a large ship, it is an okay investment. It will make the difference rarely, but again, it doesn't cost much compared to the rest of the ship.
ECCM is vital on beam ships, but only becomes important on missile ships around ECCM 4 or 5, and then only if you have large missile fire controls.
Thanks for the tip!
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Would you or someone else please write down what a likely fighter combat scenario would look like? I'm yet to enter any serious combat so I'm clueless here. The way I see it:
AAM radar range is rather small vs small missiles, so sensor fighter needs to fly either at the same TG or very close to non-radar fighters. Say, you use 10 gun fighters + 2 radar-equipped fighters per squadron. Missiles start flying, or enemy starts flying, and everyone targets radar equipped fighters. Couple of missiles or lucky enemy fighters get through and both radar fighters explode. This happens 1 bn km away from the carrier. Closest radar ships are ASM resolution focused and can't help with small targets. So now 10 of the fighters are either also dead, or useless.
OR you need even more dedicated radar fighters, which makes the whole concept of efficient space allocation moot.
What am I missing?
In my own (admittedly limited) experience, fighter combat tends to be quick and dirty, but can be highly effective even if the enemy is both faster than your capital ships and has a longer weapon range. My current doctrine is to use a dedicated sensor ship with a huge active as bait to lure the enemy in and draw their fire, making their speed work in my favour. If they come within range of that then my fighters don't need actives and have a chance to sneak up on them undetected. If the enemy outranges that, then my sensor fighters don't light up their actives until the rest are in range and ready to fire. Either way I try not to launch fighters until the enemy has depleted their ASM stocks against my PD escorts.
Uhm, yeah, I value endurance and multi-role capabilities (and other means of logistical benefits) on strategic level very highly. But even then, I tried lowering it and it did not make much difference anyway.
Also, at current speeds, I feel like 1 year is very small timeframe for any sort of mission except for fighting exclusively at Sol.
Big E's crew endurance is double the maintenance life. I would be concerned about the ship exploding due to age failures long before crew endurance becomes a factor. Five years is fine for a survey ship, but seems rather long for a warship. If she's going to be on-station that long you might want to set up a FOB with maintenance facilities or even a drydock. My own capital ships are slower than yours and only have a one year deployment time but I still expect them to fight offensively two jumps away from their supply bases without issue.
Uhm, I plan on having 3x12 = 36 strike fighters and 2x12 = 24 gun fighters. 36x4x4=576, one load. I have 1208, which means two loads. Not much, but that's 4 tons of armored ammo magazines already. That's 3 strikes in total, if we include starting loadout on docked fighters.
But yeah, carriers are nothing without support ships. Those are always in my mind and will be following combat TGs nearby. Though, I do think I'll go slow on auxiliary ships. My current ones are 2500m/s. I intend lowering my battleline speed to 3200 km/s currently. There are no AIs nearby that I'm aware of. The one I know, my bold and strange ally, always flies at 1400 km/s for some reason. The AI that nuked my previous Earth in first campaign around the same year was moving at 3K. I think I should be fine for now with 3200 battleline and 2500 on supports, am I right?
That seems to be a reasonable loadout. I match my carrier with its escorts and colliers.
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Would you or someone else please write down what a likely fighter combat scenario would look like?
In my campaign, there is a bit of a conflict between the explorer corps and the rest of the navy of the numbering formula for "Xth battle of Y system".
The explorers consider any encounter where the active sensors of an enemy are detected to be a battle. Other branches only count 'battles' as events where fire was exchanged, so unarmed ships getting blown up don't count.
So, since I consider the scouting battle to be rather important, and a lot of fun, I will go into some detail about it.
Some 10-15 billion km and several jumps from Earth, one of my scout fighters detects enemy presence in a system. This happens in several ways:
They check major bodies in a system, and discover a listening post with its 5 or 10 thermal, and possibly the scouts actives detect ground troops.
Or they happen upon an enemy fleet. Depending on whether it is a long endurance pinnace, or a fast fleet scout, the scout might detect the actives in time to run away. They are most vulnerable if they were detected on thermal sensors, but that generally only happens if the enemy does not have long ranged anti-ship sensors that give away their presence.
Subsequent probes, including with long endurance sensor missiles, localize what bodies the enemy is focused around, and might get information about enemy AMM armament, or possibly beams that kill the probe missiles.
A picket is always left at the jump point to the enemy system. If the scouts did their job, they don't reveal where they came in. But if the NPR starts exploring they will have some forces that are harder to account for. On the one hand, you can defeat them without them having an easy retreat or reload of missiles, but on the other, you won't know where exactly to find them. So you will want a scout that can shadow the enemy outside the range that it can be detected. Of course, a player could have relatively stealthy ships waiting in their wake to kill a shadow that blunders into them, but the AI is not that sophisticated. But they might do something like that accidentally.
If you are on offense vs an enemy that is clearly tied to a particular body, you can lead off with sensor missiles, or preposition scouts for when your main fleet enters their detection range. For the most part, I prefer that my carriers never enter their system at all. But when the jump point is pretty far out, part of the job of the scouts is to bring the enemy out to about a billion km from the jump point, where they won't be able to detect the fighters and FACs, and also where they won't be able to withdraw.
Depending on how worried I am about enemy missiles, and relative speeds, I can either have my combined railgun, sensor fighters, and missile FAC proceed inward in a bloc, or just with the railgun fighters, sensor fighters, and a sacrificial bait FAC to draw enemy missile fire. My missile FACs tend to be significantly slower than my railgun fighters. Again, this is a tactic that works very well vs the AI, not so much vs players. And bleeding out enemy missiles is pretty tedious.
A lot depends on whether I have enough railgun fighters to be able to defeat AMM spam. If you know the exact range of the enemy missiles, you can jink in and out of enemy range, and they just blow up when they run out of fuel. That is a bit of an exploit. My missiles fighters tend to have a wide variety of missiles, as I try to use old, obsolete missiles as effectively as I can. Where possible, I engage with short range missiles that deliver the largest warheads that can be accurately delivered against the known target's speed.
Enemy AMMs are the bane of fighters. However, the enemy will usually fire 1-3 AMMs at each of your missiles, even if you are firing ridiculously cheap decoys that have no warhead. So an option is to bleed the enemy of AMMs by firing hundreds of .05 BP cost decoy missiles at them.
Again, this is also a bit of an exploit.
Now, some of these tactics you can do with full sized ships as well. However, it is a lot easier to figure out the enemy's range vs smallcraft, and a lot easier for them to dodge out of missile range when their missile detection range is a significant percentage of the enemy AMM range.
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I design my ships as best I understand how real militaries design theirs. They have missions they need to fulfill so you give them the means to fulfill that mission regardless of the circumstances they find themselves in. So yeah give your fighters sensors that allow them to see the targets they are intended to destroy. Then you don't need to waste two fighters per squadron with recon birds.
It is a bit like the existence of Hawkeye aircraft meaning you don't include sensors on naval warships. To see what happens in real life when you allow too many assumptions to determine the capabilities of your warships take a look at the 82 Falklands war.
But since there is no one right way to do anything in Aurora I would suggest starting off in a way that you find acceptable to your sense of "warships have this" and then modifying the design based on experience. I can say that the NCNs warships have over time changed until their last two engagements were significantly different from their first few engagements with the 8th Squadron standing off a massive missile bombardment even though they had lost their command ship to a FAC strike at point blank range and then a good chunk of the fleet re-learning that kamakazi attacks are painful...so they lost some CLEs they didn't want to loose in the follow up engagement. But also they developed the Birddog recon small craft to enable them to engage enemy FACs at range after the 8th Squadron drove off a FAC strike at the cost of most of the FAC cover provided by the 1st Carrier Squadron. They also learned that enemy point defense systems play havoc with their own missile strikes...so the next generation of missiles for the CAs will be "armoured" to see if that enables at least some of them to penetrate the enemies last ditch fire.
I also find ECCM-1 to very very useful. It makes a significant difference in when or even if I can engage the enemy.
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Wow, thank you for combat tidbits, folks! I welcome any additional short stories! Keep them coming, if you can!
I have a rather simple question. Since my ships have multiple weapon and FCS types and I can't use autofire on them (I tried and failed in my first campaign), I have a question about how to semi-automate them, at least. Tell me if I understand this correctly:
Enabling any PD mode for gunnery or missile FCS will allow it to automatically attack ANY targets that are in range. Correct? Meaning, if I have Gauss PD guns in PD mode (Point Blank PD Mode 1) and AMMs in PD mode (3v1 PD Mode 300), they will also attack any fighters or ships that get into their allowed range (10k and 3M accordingly). Yes? Or is PD mode against missiles only?
I can manually assign targets for larger ASMs, but want to have AMM and PD fire to be automated. Am I getting this right? Do I need to know anything else?
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Wow, thank you for combat tidbits, folks! I welcome any additional short stories! Keep them coming, if you can!
I have a rather simple question. Since my ships have multiple weapon and FCS types and I can't use autofire on them (I tried and failed in my first campaign), I have a question about how to semi-automate them, at least. Tell me if I understand this correctly:
Enabling any PD mode for gunnery or missile FCS will allow it to automatically attack ANY targets that are in range. Correct? Meaning, if I have Gauss PD guns in PD mode (Point Blank PD Mode 1) and AMMs in PD mode (3v1 PD Mode 300), they will also attack any fighters or ships that get into their allowed range (10k and 3M accordingly). Yes? Or is PD mode against missiles only?
I can manually assign targets for larger ASMs, but want to have AMM and PD fire to be automated. Am I getting this right? Do I need to know anything else?
Autofire has some pretty strict requirements (AFAIK largely undocumented), since it was designed for NPR ships. I have yet to get it to work.
PD only attacks missiles.
You need to manually select targets for offensive weapons. PD mode missile and beam fire controls are automated.
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Among the reasons that real ships and presumably real space ships would have their own sensors is the issue of parallax and comm time. Having the sensors significantly distant from a ship would delay receipt of data, and therefore make it less accurate.
But sensors are apparently FTL, instantaneous, in the Aurora4x universe.
A lot depends on whether you play the RP, or play to the game mechanics. By the game mechanics, you are more likely to win the detection game, ie, detecting the enemy before they detect you, and therefore be able to choose whether or not to engage based on that advantage, if you have dedicated sensor ships/fighters. The scouting mini-game in Aurora4x is not reality based, but it is an interesting mini-game by the mechanics.
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In modern warfare all sensors are instantaneous as the speed of light is so much greater than the distances involved. All platforms are equipped with the sensors required for their mission because no one wants their force mission killed if a single asset is destroyed. An AWAC aircraft is a force multiplier but if it is lost the fighters can still perform their operations for example.
You can mount a long range sensor on a combat ship just as easily as mounting it on some dedicated sensor platform. You win the detection game fairly easily, just carry EM sensors. But that dedicated sensor ship concept only makes sense if you can say with some degree of certainty it won't be destroyed. When this is not the case then things rapidly become complex. The 8th survived in major part because I was able to use my pinnaces to increase my detection range by nearly 50% of my base which dramatically increased the odds of an intercept by the CMs...it should have also improved the chances the DPPD arrays killed the missiles but it seems that technology does not work. But in other battles where it would have been even more critical to get that early warning the enemy engaged and destroyed the pinnaces. Back to the 8th, my Snowbird recon craft picked up the second FAC strike and my FACs were able to intercept it long before I would have otherwise known it was there. The Birddog recon craft is an untested development of that intercept for example. Dedicated sensor platforms make sense and you should use them if you wish or need to. But the existence of dedicated sensor ships is not a really good reason, to me, to not equip your ships with sensors to enable them to perform their intended missions.
Once you know that the AI reacts in a certain way I can't think of a game out there that doesn't let you game the game to your advantage. But for that reason exploiting this stopped being interesting, for me, a long time ago. So yeah I RP it in nearly every game I play.
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MFC set to AMM mode will launch automatically but only at missiles.
BFC set to PD mode will fire automatically but only at missiles.
AutoFire is for NPRs and does not work, don't bother trying to use it.
You have to destroy enemy fighters the same way as FACs and full-sized ships, ie do it manually.
Of course, you can use any MFC/BFC to target anything you want (with the constraints of resolution/range) so the PD MFC/BFC are usually good for attacking fighters as well as missiles but that isn't an automatic process.
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Oh well, I'll have to do it manually then. . Sad, but what do you do. .
Another question. Ground Units/Combat. I know that you need units to assemble PDCs on empty planets and to uncover artifacts. I guess capturing enemy ships can be valuable too. But attacking planets with Ground Forces? What's the point? In my first campaign I got nuked from orbit, and my whole population and entire industry was destroyed. What's the value of attacking with ground forces? RPing? Taking over hostile population, resources and industries?
Also, I suspect that if you've got enough power to land troops somewhere, you can as well glass everything from orbit. Is that true? Or is there a more sneaky/easier way of landing than glassing?
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Another question. Ground Units/Combat. I know that you need units to assemble PDCs on empty planets and to uncover artifacts. I guess capturing enemy ships can be valuable too. But attacking planets with Ground Forces?
Yes.
What's the point?
Capturing, instead of genociding, the population.
In my first campaign I got nuked from orbit, and my whole population and entire industry was destroyed. What's the value of attacking with ground forces?
Capturing, instead of genociding, the population.
NPRs aren't programmed for offensive ground combat in VB6 Aurora, so they will never attack you with ground forces, only planetary bombardment. They'll defend if you attack them, but that's it.
RPing?
Or course. Literally everything in Aurora only exists to facilitate roleplaying your empire.
Taking over hostile population, resources and industries?
Yes. Ground combat is almost the only way to do this. Nuking a colony into surrender pretty much requires you to wipe out half or more of it first.
Also, I suspect that if you've got enough power to land troops somewhere, you can as well glass everything from orbit. Is that true?
Usually, yes. VB6 Aurora isn't great at simulating this, as 'unload ground troops' actually functions to instantly transfer all the troops from the ship(s) to the colony, then delay the ship(s) from doing anything else for the many hours and/or days the unloading order supposedly takes.
So if your troop transports survive to land, the troops are safe even if the ship(s) get blown up by missiles, mesons, or whatever ten seconds later.
Or is there a more sneaky/easier way of landing than glassing?
The colony is usually not the problem when landing troops, it's the ships, bases, and other mobile (or not) units. Luring them away, running them out of missiles, or just decoying their fire to other units can let you land troops without destroying the space-based units, but almost everyone almost always just kills them first and lands after.
Really, the only danger comes from ground-based missile or meson bases, and as soon as they show themselves (by firing) the invader tends to kill them regardless of the ground bombardment effects, so they very rarely affect troop landings.
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I've got a new question, concerning armor.
So, I have WH 9 anti-ship missiles. Does one such missile just destroys 3 levels of armor and does not do any additional damage to what is beyond? If a ship only has 3 levels of armor, and it is hit by a single WH 9 missile, it will result in a hole but no internal damage?
If I get it correctly, a missile should have a warhead of 10 to be able to penetrate the armor and then deal at least 1 damage to the internals with the same explosion.
Am I getting this right?
Thanks!
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The 10th damage point would impact on the outermost layer of armor. You would need 16 damage to reach the 4th layer (or cause internal damage if the ship has 3 armor layers). This image shows where each damage point falls for missiles (left) and lasers (right). Essentially, until you reach the next square number, you are making the hole wider, not deeper.
(https://i.imgur.com/wOP08oT.png)
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Ugh, I'm sorry, I still don't get it.
Are you saying that the damage spreads the same regardless of whether there is armor or not? You need at least WH 16 missile to reach internal components of ships with armor level 3 (with a single strike)?
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Ugh, I'm sorry, I still don't get it.
Are you saying that the damage spreads the same regardless of whether there is armor or not? You need at least WH 16 missile to reach internal components of ships with armor level 3 (with a single strike)?
If a ship with 3 layers of armor (and no damage) is hit by a WH 9-15 missile, there will be armor damage on all three layers of armor, but no internal damage:
(https://i.imgur.com/IqNigjS.png)
The same ship, getting hit by a WH 16 missile, will take internal damage:
(https://i.imgur.com/go8rNm6.png)
Repeated damage (not hits, the damage) in the same area will, as far as I know, "fall" straight down through the holes to intact armor:
(https://i.imgur.com/pdyVFrX.png)
And here's an animated version of JacenHan's image, hopefully it makes it clear how the damage increases:
(https://i.imgur.com/aolbzjG.gif)
Album link: imgur.com/a/aaxKhlt
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If these aren't in the Wiki already, they should be added there.
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So, if I'm getting it right, the damage is distributed like this: one damage point per square. This is the part that I misunderstood. Now it all makes sense to me.
WH 9 missile's damage can't reach beyond 3 layers because it is the last point of damage that reaches the 3rd layer, and there's no damage left to expand downwards.
Thank you all!
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I would have assumed the damage to be far more symmetrically distributed but if that is the "word of Steve" then it is so....
I would for a missile expect:
10-5-3-1-2-6-11
12-7-4-8-13
14-9-15
16
With damage added first symmetrically to the outer damage ring then working inward.
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it is symmetrical, just not in the way you're thinking.
9 damage:
5-2-1-3-7
6-4-8
9
consider adding three:
10-5-2-1-3-7
11-6-4-8
12-9
this is symmetrical, except the symmetrical point has changed
another 3:
10-5-2-1-3-7-13
11-6-4-8-14
12-9-15
the advantage of this over what you are proposing is that there is more deeper damage rather than having nearly all damage in the first few layers
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Another question :)
Terraforming Mars.
I've changed Mars to 0.88 suitability by adding 0.2 atm of Safe GH Gas, 0.2 atm Oxygen and 0.2 atm Anti-GH Gas. In the later stages of doing so I realized I have to keep both GH/AGH gases to keep the temperature at a certain level. Problem is, I can't get the value of both to be exactly the same. Even though the setting was typed in as "0.2", by the time the simulation disables the addition of a gas, it adds a bit more of it, a small fracture over the set limit, so I have 0.2055 and 0.203 of GH/AGH gases.
This means that the balance isn't perfect and the temperature slowly shifts. I'm currently adding Nitrogen to get 1.0 total pressure, but not sure what to do next. Current surface temp is -31 degrees Celsius, so I need to heat it up again. I managed to get it to 15 a couple of years ago, but then it dropped again when I increased AGH gas pressure.
What do I do?
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I've changed Mars to 0.88 suitability by adding 0.2 atm of Safe GH Gas, 0.2 atm Oxygen and 0.2 atm Anti-GH Gas. In the later stages of doing so I realized I have to keep both GH/AGH gases to keep the temperature at a certain level. Problem is, I can't get the value of both to be exactly the same. Even though the setting was typed in as "0.2", by the time the simulation disables the addition of a gas, it adds a bit more of it, a small fracture over the set limit, so I have 0.2055 and 0.203 of GH/AGH gases.
This means that the balance isn't perfect and the temperature slowly shifts. I'm currently adding Nitrogen to get 1.0 total pressure, but not sure what to do next. Current surface temp is -31 degrees Celsius, so I need to heat it up again. I managed to get it to 15 a couple of years ago, but then it dropped again when I increased AGH gas pressure.
What do I do?
Don't add Anti-GH gas
Earths atmosphere is 78% Nitrogen 21% Oxygen and 1% everything else. Add Safe GH gas to get your temp to the bottom of the acceptable range, then add Oxygen to make it breathable, then add nitrogen as needed. The increasing pressure will continue to raise the temp, but very slowly. You only need anti-GH gas to cool off a hot planet.
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Don't add Anti-GH gas
Earths atmosphere is 78% Nitrogen 21% Oxygen and 1% everything else. Add Safe GH gas to get your temp to the bottom of the acceptable range, then add Oxygen to make it breathable, then add nitrogen as needed. The increasing pressure will continue to raise the temp, but very slowly. You only need anti-GH gas to cool off a hot planet.
Oh! I guess I overworked a bit..
So you don't need AGH gas to counter-balance the GH gas. Temperature was changing for me simply because I kept increasing the total atmo pressure (by pumping in the oxygen), which changes the Greenhouse Factor, not because of the GH gas itself. I guess I get it now. So I can safely remove all AGH gas, pump in more Nitrogen and will only have to fine tune the temperature by changing the amount of GH gas (also watching out for Albedo changes due to water/ice freezing and melting).
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Correct,
There used to be a spreadsheet that would help you calculate the amount of GH gas needed given the final pressure desired and the initial temp. I cannot seem to find my copy.
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Okay, I got Mars to 0 colony cost, yay!
A new question. I have lots of pricey ships halted under construction. Some are 50-70% complete. If I cancel the construction, do I get anything in return? Or do I lose everything already used up to this point, it all just goes poof?
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Everything goes poof, you get nothing back. Never ever cancel a ship unless you absolutely must do so. You get more back by finishing the construction and then immediately scrapping the ship via the shipyard.
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Okay, I got Mars to 0 colony cost, yay!
A new question. I have lots of pricey ships halted under construction. Some are 50-70% complete. If I cancel the construction, do I get anything in return? Or do I lose everything already used up to this point, it all just goes poof?
You lose it all. However, you can pause the construction and restart when you have more money.
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Everything goes poof, you get nothing back. Never ever cancel a ship unless you absolutely must do so. You get more back by finishing the construction and then immediately scrapping the ship via the shipyard.
Sad. If minerals are spent proportional to completion progress, I have to spend like 15-17k units of Gallicite to finish the ships I've designed before I got more mindful about my mineral spendings. The problem is, the ship's upkeep in minerals over the years (what % is it anyway?) will be the bigger killer than the construction costs.
Decisions decisions..
Thank you!
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Also, if scrapping gives not more than 30% minerals back (I don't care about the money here, only minerals), anything that's not 70%+ finished will yield loss if completed and then scrapped. Am I right?
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Yes.
But you can keep construction paused indefinitely and resume when you have more minerals available.