Author Topic: C# Aurora Changes Discussion  (Read 441764 times)

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Offline Naismith

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2340 on: August 18, 2019, 10:23:54 PM »
I don't really see why using one mode of defensive fire over another is a problem.  If point defense is too powerful, make it more expensive or have a lower rate of fire or something.  The salvo spam stuff was always bizarre.

The problem IMO is not that Final Fire or Point defense is too powerful ( I think it will be pretty well balanced with this change ) but that Area Defence for engaging at range is too weak / useless in comparison to Final Fire. This change makes the difference even worse since Final Fire now won't need alot of fire controls vs smaller salvos, while Area Defence still will

Yes, agree on that. I need to look at area defence. It doesn't really function as I originally intended.
One way to improve area defense might be to give it an improved tracking bonus. I know consistency is important, so my explanation why final fire doesn't get as big a boost is that the change in behavior as a missile starts it's attack run throws off the predictive algorithms.
 

Offline Scandinavian

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2341 on: August 19, 2019, 01:08:15 AM »
I don't really see why using one mode of defensive fire over another is a problem.  If point defense is too powerful, make it more expensive or have a lower rate of fire or something.  The salvo spam stuff was always bizarre.

The problem IMO is not that Final Fire or Point defense is too powerful ( I think it will be pretty well balanced with this change ) but that Area Defence for engaging at range is too weak / useless in comparison to Final Fire. This change makes the difference even worse since Final Fire now won't need alot of fire controls vs smaller salvos, while Area Defence still will

Yes, agree on that. I need to look at area defence. It doesn't really function as I originally intended.
One way to improve area defense might be to give it an improved tracking bonus. I know consistency is important, so my explanation why final fire doesn't get as big a boost is that the change in behavior as a missile starts it's attack run throws off the predictive algorithms.
The easiest way to make area defense make sense is to allow it to apply tracking time bonus to the distance-based to-hit modifier as well.

The current issue with area defense is that your weapon's engagement envelope needs to be greater than two times the distance the missile travels during your weapon's reload time for it to make sense to set your weapon to area defense. This is very difficult to achieve for any kind of comparable tech levels.

If you are allowed to make tracking time compensate for engagement range as well as tracking speed, area defense begins to make sense already at ranges greater than a single missile travel time per reload if, your sensors are good enough to fully compensate for the range penalty (because you are guaranteed one shot, which is as effective as FDF, but have a chance to get another shot as well). If your sensors are not good enough to fully compensate, as will typically be the case, the cut-off for switching from area defense to FDF grows toward 2 missile flight distances, creating a more interesting set of design and research decisions.
 

Offline chrislocke2000

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2342 on: August 19, 2019, 04:38:54 AM »
I agree on the area defense issues, I don't think I have ever used it effectively in a game.

The reduced missile speeds should help on this but I don't think its going to go far enough. Generally I'd expect area defence to be useful where you can detach escorts from you main TF and have them usefully engage incoming missiles before the reach the main group. I wonder if missiles passing through an engagement envelope being fired on rather than just those that land in the engagement range would help.

Not such a fan of the tracking bonus applying to range unless this is also applied to ship to ship combat.

 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2343 on: August 19, 2019, 05:38:08 AM »
I agree on the area defense issues, I don't think I have ever used it effectively in a game.

The reduced missile speeds should help on this but I don't think its going to go far enough. Generally I'd expect area defence to be useful where you can detach escorts from you main TF and have them usefully engage incoming missiles before the reach the main group. I wonder if missiles passing through an engagement envelope being fired on rather than just those that land in the engagement range would help.

Not such a fan of the tracking bonus applying to range unless this is also applied to ship to ship combat.

I think 'passing through' would probably be the best implementation of area defence. That wouldn't be too hard to implement and I could use the closest point of approach during the increment.

The main problem is tactical utility though rather than mechanics. If a ship is deployed away from the main force it becomes an easier target so the benefit of enhanced energy point defence is countered by increased vulnerability. The only way the area mode really gains over final defensive fire is if it can fire more than once, which means long-ranged turreted weapons with appropriate fire control. In that case, even though it might fire more than once, a ship designed for final defensive fire has more weapons for the same cost, so firing more than once doesn't necessarily help. Maybe some sort of 'stealth picket' could help, but again cost vs capability might still not be viable.

Rather than than trying to make area mode work for energy weapons, maybe we just have to accept the concept isn't really viable. Even in modern warfare, the 'Anti-Air Picket' would be armed with AMMs rather than short-range weapons. A forward AMM picket really could make a difference.

Re tracking bonus: If energy point defence does prove too effective with the new changes, I would probably remove the tracking bonus altogether.
 

Offline chrislocke2000

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2344 on: August 19, 2019, 06:28:47 AM »

The main problem is tactical utility though rather than mechanics. If a ship is deployed away from the main force it becomes an easier target so the benefit of enhanced energy point defence is countered by increased vulnerability. The only way the area mode really gains over final defensive fire is if it can fire more than once, which means long-ranged turreted weapons with appropriate fire control. In that case, even though it might fire more than once, a ship designed for final defensive fire has more weapons for the same cost, so firing more than once doesn't necessarily help. Maybe some sort of 'stealth picket' could help, but again cost vs capability might still not be viable.


Agree its only really of use where the x section of your forward escorts is sufficiently low compared to the fire controls of the enemy to push them to engaging your main body. I do however see a use for area defense for forward small corvettes / Facs / fighters if you can engage missiles passing through that engagement range.
 

Offline misanthropope

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2345 on: August 19, 2019, 09:47:50 AM »
steve

with regards to tracking time bonus, a big part of the problem is that it has been represented as purely additive; a railgun with a natural accuracy of 15% with a 20% tracking bonus should (imo) hit at 18% whereas as currently envisioned (documented, at least) it will hit at 35%, which just *has* to make long range missiles non-viable.  Im not in a position to test my suppositions or my my conclusion, but i know a guy who is.

i don't know all the A# changes let alone their interactions, but i feel the final fire BFC change alone would represent a substantial improvement to beam defense in 7.1. 
 

Offline Bremen

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2346 on: August 19, 2019, 10:54:48 AM »
steve

with regards to tracking time bonus, a big part of the problem is that it has been represented as purely additive; a railgun with a natural accuracy of 15% with a 20% tracking bonus should (imo) hit at 18% whereas as currently envisioned (documented, at least) it will hit at 35%, which just *has* to make long range missiles non-viable.  Im not in a position to test my suppositions or my my conclusion, but i know a guy who is.

i don't know all the A# changes let alone their interactions, but i feel the final fire BFC change alone would represent a substantial improvement to beam defense in 7.1.

I'm fairly certain the first example is how it works? Well, I've heard it doesn't work at all in VB, but I'm confident it will be multiplicative rather than additive in C# because that's how most accuracy modifiers work.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2347 on: August 19, 2019, 11:09:04 AM »
steve

with regards to tracking time bonus, a big part of the problem is that it has been represented as purely additive; a railgun with a natural accuracy of 15% with a 20% tracking bonus should (imo) hit at 18% whereas as currently envisioned (documented, at least) it will hit at 35%, which just *has* to make long range missiles non-viable.  Im not in a position to test my suppositions or my my conclusion, but i know a guy who is.

i don't know all the A# changes let alone their interactions, but i feel the final fire BFC change alone would represent a substantial improvement to beam defense in 7.1.

See the rules post:

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg115708#msg115708

It is a multiplicative addition to tracking speed, not to-hit. So if your tracking speed is 4000 km/s and the tracking bonus is 10% (which is not easy as that requires tracking for 50 seconds), your tracking speed will be 4400 km/s.
 

Online Garfunkel

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2348 on: August 19, 2019, 12:00:28 PM »
I wonder if missiles passing through an engagement envelope being fired on rather than just those that land in the engagement range would help.
I think 'passing through' would probably be the best implementation of area defence. That wouldn't be too hard to implement and I could use the closest point of approach during the increment.
If Area Defence BFC can fire at missiles as they pass through, even if the missiles do not end up their 5-sec movement inside the firing envelope, it would make AD actually useful. Yeah, stealthy picket ships ahead of the main group thinning salvos out might not be economically viable when compared to flak-barges using final fire, but at least they would mechanically work. So if that change is both possible and easy to make, it would be interesting to have so we could play around with it.

Since my first C# game will have so many factions, I'm definitely experimenting with all possible defensive techniques and in various combinations, so the more there are, the happier I'll be.  :)
 
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Offline chrislocke2000

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2349 on: August 19, 2019, 04:21:12 PM »
Interesting to see what I assume are the new mechanics on weapon failures impacting one off box launcher shots from fighters in Steve's current campaign. That feels like a slightly unintended consequence to me as feels a bit rough to now need engineering bays on all fighters to ensure that one alpha launch works. I wonder if an exception to box launchers would be reasonable. 
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2350 on: August 19, 2019, 04:51:57 PM »
Interesting to see what I assume are the new mechanics on weapon failures impacting one off box launcher shots from fighters in Steve's current campaign. That feels like a slightly unintended consequence to me as feels a bit rough to now need engineering bays on all fighters to ensure that one alpha launch works. I wonder if an exception to box launchers would be reasonable.

Yes, that was sort of an unintended consequence. However, I solved it by adding a 5-ton fighter engineering component to the next Starhawk version. Given that fighter sensors and fire controls are much smaller in C#, it isn't really a problem.

BTW all the small engineering and fuel components are now starting techs - you no longer need to research them.
 
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Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2351 on: August 19, 2019, 05:33:30 PM »
While Area Point-Defence might not be economically viable as a direct tactic it can certainly be useful as a side effect use of beam ships in general. If you have some more or less dedicated long range beam ships you might as well send them out to do Area defence work and perhaps spend some time to use some of their beam weapons in turrets. Now the ship have a purpose not just in beam combat but to swat down missiles in area defence mode.

If we see considerable lower speed on long range missiles and larger missiles then this actually can be a viable secondary use for beam combat ships that don't have and final defensive type weapons anyway.

So even if we are not going to build ships with the sole purpose to do area defence work it can be a secondary job for beam ships if it is more effective than using such ships in final defensive fire.

Anyway, making it so that at least long range weapons are clearly more effective this way by changing some of the way the engagement works can in my opinion make it at least somewhat interesting.
 

Offline Titanian

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2352 on: August 19, 2019, 05:57:57 PM »
Another option could be to reduce the power of engines in general, leading to lower speeds for both ships and missiles. That would give weapons a longer relative range without increasing the range of the weapons themselves, avoiding the five lightseconds problem. And I don't think lower ship speed would really hurt the game.
 

Offline DIT_grue

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2353 on: August 20, 2019, 02:42:05 AM »
I think 'passing through' would probably be the best implementation of area defence. That wouldn't be too hard to implement and I could use the closest point of approach during the increment.

<snip>

Rather than than trying to make area mode work for energy weapons, maybe we just have to accept the concept isn't really viable.

Huh... that seems like it might end up merging the PD modes from the other direction, as it were? (Depending on implementation, of course.) Rather than discarding Area Defence as useless, if 'closest approach' is 'zero, because it's trying to hit me' then you've ended up with Final Defensive Fire plus a risk that your weapons can't protect you because they have already shot at missiles aimed at someone else who isn't even nearby to return the favour. Which makes FDF more-or-less the midpoint on a spectrum from AD to FDF(self only), and might be a good outcome?
 

Offline Doren

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2354 on: August 20, 2019, 02:54:34 PM »
Area defence PD would actually be a lot more useful if it would be able to shoot missiles that pass through but do not end their turn in PD range since that would already mean that you could protect disabled ships with your PD which could be thought as a improvement over final fire.

There's also a situation where you could have PD ships on top of enemy missile ships (like jump point situations) and they could start launching missiles at other targets if they happen to know (maybe after a salvo or so? or pervious engagement) that they cannot actually harm the PD ships due to amount of PD but in case of final fire mode missiles would go unhindered compared to a area defence if it was more reliable to be used