Aurora C# Screenshots

[83athom]

I was referring to 'birthing vs 'berthing'

They must resist the pelvic sorcery for the greater good.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

A minor update to the Fleet window tree view. Each Admin command now displays the required rank to be assigned to that command. The required rank is one rank higher than the most senior subordinate fleet commander or the most senior officer running a subordinate admin command. You can check the officers in the subordinate fleets by clicking on them.

For example, one of the colony fleets assigned to Colony Command has a Commander (CMDR) as it's C.O. so the Admin Command requires a Captain (CPT). Frontier Fleet requires a Rear-Admiral, as one of its subordinate fleets is commanded by a Commodore, which means the Battle Fleet (which is a higher Admin Command) needs a Vice-Admiral and the highest Admin Command (Commonwealth Navy) needs an Admiral.

With this requirement in mind, I will be creating the ability to assign minimum and maximum ranks for every ship (so you can ensure freighters are only commanded by the lowest rank for example). This should lead to much more realistic command structures.

I haven't completely decided on how the admin commands will work but at the moment I am leaning towards:
 - Admin Commands will have a type, that will allow that Admin Command to share certain bonuses from its commander (Survey from a Survey Admin Command, Logistics from a Logistics Admin Command, etc.)
 - There will be a new installation called Naval Command Headquarters (or something similar) which can have levels in the same way as a Sector Command. These will be transportable by freighters.
 - Each Admin Command will be assigned to a population with an NCH and its reach will be dependent on the level of that NCH (same rules as sector commands - probably with bonuses for certain Admin Command types such as Survey)
 - If the physical building is destroyed, there will be a chance for any officers running Admin Commands from its location to be killed. The Admin Commands themselves will have to relocate.
 - The reach will be counted in transits and every subordinate fleet or admin command in reach will be given the benefit from that command
 - The benefit will likely be on the lines of a sector command, so providing one quarter of the Admin Command C.O.'s bonus.
 - This can stack, so a survey ship would get a quarter of the bonus from the immediate superior admin command and a sixteenth of the bonus from the one above that.
 - If two Admin Commands are providing bonuses, the immediate superior command would have to be in range of the ship and the higher command would have to be in range of the lower command. This will create an administrative network reaching out from fleet headquarters and will require defences to protect the administrative nodes.

However, all of this is optional and not using Admin Commands will not cause any issues (beyond the loss of the potential bonuses).

This type of complex hierarchy for providing bonuses and realistic command structures is a benefit of C# and the much faster execution speed.

[dukea42]

Is there an easy possibility to rank the Admin Commands in priority for which ones will have COs assigned?   For example I'd want the Battle Fleet to have the best captains and commanders (per ship priority) than the Home fleet that's still half in dry-dock. 

[TMaekler]

Did you explain this new command structure earlier, Steve? I think I did not grasp the idea from your last post - so would love to read a more detailed explanation.

[bean]

Could we get Admin Command modules for ships, as well as the ashore commands?  It would be nice if, for instance, I was able to put my survey headquarters aboard a mobile platform, instead of having to haul it around in freighters.
Also, it would be very helpful to be able to make ships accept commanders that didn't have crew training as an option.  Freighters, tankers, and the like should be able to pull COs based on logistics bonus instead of crew training. 

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Did you explain this new command structure earlier, Steve? I think I did not grasp the idea from your last post - so would love to read a more detailed explanation.

It is in the C# Changes List:

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg97344#msg97344

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Could we get Admin Command modules for ships, as well as the ashore commands?  It would be nice if, for instance, I was able to put my survey headquarters aboard a mobile platform, instead of having to haul it around in freighters.
Also, it would be very helpful to be able to make ships accept commanders that didn't have crew training as an option.  Freighters, tankers, and the like should be able to pull COs based on logistics bonus instead of crew training.

The module is trickier as it can change systems during an increment (although I guess that is also true for the ships that benefit), plus I wanted to represent a major HQ with associated infrastructure. At the moment I plan to set admin command bonuses at the start of each increment rather than re-calculate everything at any point it is needed. That is much simpler and faster, without much downside in realism.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Is there an easy possibility to rank the Admin Commands in priority for which ones will have COs assigned?   For example I'd want the Battle Fleet to have the best captains and commanders (per ship priority) than the Home fleet that's still half in dry-dock.

Do you mean, set an admin command with a flag so that any ships in fleets subordinate to that admin command have a lower priority for commander assignment?

[bean]

The module is trickier as it can change systems during an increment (although I guess that is also true for the ships that benefit), plus I wanted to represent a major HQ with associated infrastructure. At the moment I plan to set admin command bonuses at the start of each increment rather than re-calculate everything at any point it is needed. That is much simpler and faster, without much downside in realism.

So just assume that the bonuses are persistent during the increment, which solves the moving ship problem entirely.  The HQ did the planning for the whole increment, so it makes sense for it to stick even if the ship moves out of range.
As for the size of the facility, I was thinking of something more like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Blue_Ridge_%28LCC-19%29 than the current flag bridges.  Almost everything can be built in space-based form in C#, and it seems weird that fleet command facilities would be an exception. 

[TheDeadlyShoe]

You could do a lot of things with an elite formation marker.   Better crew.  Maintenance priority. Fueling priority (?). First priority on munitions if you reload a mixed group....   

Or vice versa, a slovenly reserve formation whose ships have a 50/50 chance of leaving orbit...

[lennson]

The module is trickier as it can change systems during an increment (although I guess that is also true for the ships that benefit), plus I wanted to represent a major HQ with associated infrastructure. At the moment I plan to set admin command bonuses at the start of each increment rather than re-calculate everything at any point it is needed. That is much simpler and faster, without much downside in realism.

Have you considered recalculating the admin command bonuses only when they are changed?

Unless I am missing something it sounds like recalculating the command bonuses on each increment will most of the time result in same bonus as from the previous increment. This is of course still a lot better then computing the bonus from scratch when ever it is needed (potentially many times in an increment) but it still seems to be doing a lot of redundant work.

Is there a reason that bonuses can't just be updated when their inputs are changed (i.e. ship changes system, officer assignment is changed or officer has skill set revised)?

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Have you considered recalculating the admin command bonuses only when they are changed?

Unless I am missing something it sounds like recalculating the command bonuses on each increment will most of the time result in same bonus as from the previous increment. This is of course still a lot better then computing the bonus from scratch when ever it is needed (potentially many times in an increment) but it still seems to be doing a lot of redundant work.

Is there a reason that bonuses can't just be updated when their inputs are changed (i.e. ship changes system, officer assignment is changed or officer has skill set revised)?

I need to compute the bonus benefit for the ships/commands in range, not the parent admin command itself. This is likely to change very often. Given there could be a lot of ships in range, it will probably be easier to apply the bonuses automatically than to check when they need to be changed. It will be fast either way though - all this is happening in memory.

[dukea42]

Do you mean, set an admin command with a flag so that any ships in fleets subordinate to that admin command have a lower priority for commander assignment?

Yes or another number rank number like on ship classes.   Just a thought to save officer assignment effort.   Not mission critical. 

[Drizzt321]

Is there an easy possibility to rank the Admin Commands in priority for which ones will have COs assigned?   For example I'd want the Battle Fleet to have the best captains and commanders (per ship priority) than the Home fleet that's still half in dry-dock. 

Given that different officers have different bonuses, perhaps set preferred bonus types for different Classes of ships? And then each Command in the hierarchy can have a different priority for each type of bonus.  So GeoSurvey and GravSurvey ships have a preference for officers with Survey bonus, and if separated into 2 different Commands you can have GeoSurvey Command have a higher priority for the higher Survey bonuses for those ships.

Likewise for scouting/raiding forces, that Command can have priority for officers with Speed bonuses, while Battle Fleet has priority for officers with higher Fire Rate and Damage bonuses.  And the sub-fleets under Battle Fleet can have their own priorities of officers assigned to Battle Fleet.  So if 1st Fleet is the premiere fleet that is used for the biggest punch, prioritize damage bonuses or damage avoidance bonuses, while a Troop Transport escort fleet can get whatever is left over.  Or something like that.

I need to compute the bonus benefit for the ships/commands in range, not the parent admin command itself.  This is likely to change very often.  Given there could be a lot of ships in range, it will probably be easier to apply the bonuses automatically than to check when they need to be changed.  It will be fast either way though - all this is happening in memory.

While I don't want to push for premature optimization, just because it's in memory doesn't mean it's free speed   Just a heck of a lot faster than before.  If you have to do it for 10K ships. . . well, simply iterating through that list of ships might be time consuming.  Of course perhaps this could be a place where a large list is split up into sub-lists which is parallelized? Or only when a bonus is needed do you do a lookup to see what the bonus is based on what is in range?

Please, don't let my attempts at premature optimization seem like a critique, I don't really know how the code is architected, so my concern might be totally moot.

[ORCACommander]

Could we get Admin Command modules for ships, as well as the ashore commands?  It would be nice if, for instance, I was able to put my survey headquarters aboard a mobile platform, instead of having to haul it around in freighters.
Also, it would be very helpful to be able to make ships accept commanders that didn't have crew training as an option.  Freighters, tankers, and the like should be able to pull COs based on logistics bonus instead of crew training.

what would the difference be for this compared to a flag bridge?

Further such a thing i think would be better restricted to space stations with hab modules