Aurora 4x

VB6 Aurora => Aurora Suggestions => Topic started by: sloanjh on October 07, 2007, 01:44:48 PM

Title: Cockpit component and gunboats
Post by: sloanjh on October 07, 2007, 01:44:48 PM
This idea is spawned from the "agility" discussion in the Ship Design section.

I think a lot of us would love to have beam-armed, survivable fighters that weren't just stand-off missile platforms in Aurora.  Here's an idea that might allow something 1/2 way between fighters and ships - I just realized these might be called "gunboats" (since "fighter" is already taken):

Add a 1 HS component called "cockpit" which has the following effects:


The idea here is that a real-world fighter is basically minimal life support wrapping an engine, fuel tanks, and a weapon.  All of the support personnel are located at the base.  What this gives you is a MUCH better power-to-weight ratio (which translates into speed and agility), at the cost of MUCH lower endurance.

In gameplay terms, I think this would allow you to build gunboats that are significantly faster than an equivalently armed ship, which I think means they would be a lot nastier (especially if the "agility" ideas were put in).  This in turn would give an alternative option for system defense - you wouldn't need to research missile tech to have a long range strategy for planets.  Steve could also introduce "gunboat tenders" which would have the crew and maintenance facilities onboard (the other 25% to 50% of the tonnage that was shaved off the gunboat systems).

One thing I like about this is that it doesn't break Steve's "plausibility" rules - the "why can't I put 20 of these super-duper-fighter lasers on a big ship" question is answered (the ship would have to be its own tender).  At the same time, the Achilles' heel of gunboats would be maintenance - they would presumably need to spend a LOT of time with their tenders between sorties (perhaps an extra maintenance clock for them that ran at 10x during a sortie and unwound at 10x while at the tender?).  BTW, I would allow gunboats to transit detached from their tender, to allow a decent number of gunboats/tender through the WP.

Whaddaya think?

John
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Post by: SteveAlt on October 08, 2007, 09:37:19 AM
It might be possible to handle what you are looking for without much change to the code. Essentially what you need is a new small system that combines crew quarters, bridge, fuel and spares plus the ability for ships to carry other ships in an internal bay. This internal bay would have the ability to replace the spares for the new system.

At the moment, the various systems are as follows:
Bridge: 1 HS, Cost 10,
Crew Quarters: 1 HS, Cost 15, allows 250 crew
Engineering: 3 HS, Cost 30, carries 5 spares
Fuel Storage: 1 HS, Cost 10, Storage 50,000 litres

If we scale this down to combine into a single system by reducing everything in size by 80% and including the 1/5th HS bridge space for free we get:
Cockpit 1HS, Cost (10+15+30+10)/5 = 13
Allows 50 crew, carries 1 spare and 10,000 litres of fuel.

In game terms this would probably have to be three separate tiny systems though to avoid having to rewrite chunks of code to support systems with multiple uses.

The missing bridge in this scenario gives me an idea. The size of the bridge should probably depend on the size of the ship. In reality larger ships should have larger bridges so I could add that to ship design and have a HS limit below which you don't need a bridge at all.

(I am going to go away and create these systems and try to put them on a ship design)

OK, back now. I have the three small 'gunboat' systems and I have been playing with designs. This design includes just the new systems and one engine

Code: [Select]
Kresta class Gunboat    500 tons     34 Crew     69 BP      TCS 10  TH 60  EM 0
6000 km/s     Armour 1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/0/0/0/0     Damage Control 0-0     PPV 0
Replacement Parts 1    

Sorokin S8 Ion Drive (1)    Power 60    Efficiency 0.80    Signature 60    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 10,000 Litres    Range 108.0 billion km   (208 days at full power)
Unfortunately as soon as you start to add beam weapons (including fire control, reactors and weapons), the whole design is completely blown as you then have a slow ship without enough crew. Missiles would be far easier as they only need a launcher, small fire control and a magazine.

Therefore, to make this concept work I need to find a way to create smaller but still powerful engines and realistic smaller version of weapons and fire control. I also have to do this without changing the way that larger ships are designed.

(going away to think a little more)

I have created a 'gunboat engine', which is only 40% the size of a regular engine but has the same power and uses fuel 10x as fast. I am not convinced this is a good idea because it could be used en masse on larger ships so I need to add some extra restrictions to make that a bad idea (or perhaps I could just restrict the number of these engines allowed on a ship - technobabble required).

For the power reactor, I have added the ability to build 1 HS and 0.5 HS reactors. I have also used a normal basic size 1 fire control system with no multiples for tracking speed or range and a normal 12cm laser as the main armament.

The completed gunboat uses all normal ship design rules and comprises the components listed below. As you can see, the GB mainly uses smaller versions of existing components with with everything scaled down at the same rate, including cost, size and capability. The only real new rule is for the high power, high fuel use engine. Everything uses existing class design rules.

1x GB Fuel Storage (new size system but existing rules)
2x Sorokin GB Drive (new system and new rule for engine power vs fuel))
3x GB Crew Quarters (new size system but existing rules)
4x Composite Armour (existing system and rules
1x 12cm Visible Light Laser (existing system and rules)
1x GB Fire Control (existing system and rules)
1x GB Reactor (new size system but existing rules)
1x GB Engineering Section (new size system but existing rules)

And the final design...

Code: [Select]
Kresta class Gunboat    750 tons     108 Crew     159 BP      TCS 15  TH 120  EM 0
8000 km/s     Armour 1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/0/0/0/0     Damage Control 0-0     PPV 4
Replacement Parts 1    

Sorokin GB1 Ion Drive (2)    Power 60    Efficiency 8.00    Signature 60    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 10,000 Litres    Range 7.2 billion km   (10 days at full power)

12cm C2 Visible Light Laser (1)    Range 48,000km     TS: 8000 km/s     Power 4-2     RM 2    ROF 10        4 4 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0
Gunboat Fire Control (1)    Max Range: 48,000 km   TS: 3200 km/s     79 58 38 17 0 0 0 0 0 0
Gunboat Reactor (1)     Total Power Output 2    Armour 0    Exp 5%


Not sure if this is exactly what you are looking for but it does create a small, fast, short- ranged attack craft that follows all of the existing rules except for the engine (which still might be a problem).

One thing I can't do from your original request is have small jump capable ships because I want to keep jump engines to a minimum size of 15 HS. Therefore I need to think about some type of internal bay to carry smaller ships. I'll look at that once I have your comments on the above.

Steve
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Post by: SteveAlt on October 08, 2007, 09:44:02 AM
I had an idea about the new engine as soon as I logged out :)

Instead of making it smaller but retaining the same power, I could make it the same size with 2x or 2.5x more power (and the 10x fuel use plus a high explosion chance) and have a maximum of one per ship because of 'instability problems'. Suddenly it becomes perfectly reasonable to only use it on small, short-ranged ships. I have to go out for a while but I will look at this again when I get back in.

Steve
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Post by: Erik L on October 08, 2007, 09:51:57 AM
Have a boat bay.

Or.... Okay, I have a vision in my head of the transport helicopter (the one that is a cockpit with the "empty" mid-section. So basically your jump carrier is a ship that has space to lock 4-6 gunboats to its hull and then jump.

On the otherhand, treat them as LAC's from the Honorverse. Light in-system defense units.
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Post by: Þórgrímr on October 08, 2007, 10:50:44 AM
I love the idea of having tenders for them. It would resemble the PT tenders the US used to great extent in the pacific portion of world war 2. So I am all for the tender idea myself.

Personally, I like your concept of the PT Boats so far Steve.  :D




Cheers,
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Post by: SteveAlt on October 08, 2007, 11:33:38 AM
Firstly, I agree this is looking a lot like the LACs from Honorverse :)

Steve Walmsley
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Post by: sloanjh on October 08, 2007, 11:54:39 AM
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
I had an idea about the new engine as soon as I logged out :)

Instead of making it smaller but retaining the same power, I could make it the same size with 2x or 2.5x more power (and the 10x fuel use plus a high explosion chance) and have a maximum of one per ship because of 'instability problems'. Suddenly it becomes perfectly reasonable to only use it on small, short-ranged ships. I have to go out for a while but I will look at this again when I get back in.

Steve


Hi Steve,

  I was actually thinking more along the lines having a "gunboat item" property for engines, weapons systems, power plants, etc. that gives a 50% size reduction.  For every gunboat class, there would have to be a special "gunboat rack" design, which would have the coupling device (i.e. the boat bay or external rack) PLUS the mass that was left off the gunboat items (plus maybe a mass penalty, so e.g. 75% the mass of the non-gunboat systems).  This gunboat rack would be a system that could be added to a "tender", which would either be a ship or PDC design.

For example, let's say I had designed the following non-GB systems (sorry I'm not using your design conventions):

MHD engine - 5 HS, crew = 25
24pt Power Plant - 4 HS, crew = 10
Recharge 4 Laser - 6 HS, crew = 5

I could then design equivalent GB systems that would have masses of 2.5, 2, and 3 HS respectively.  I could then design a GB class with the components (assume GB components require 1/5 crew):

GB Avenger
1 cockpit - 1HS
4 MHD engine (GB) - 10 HS
1 24pt Power Plant (GB) - 2 HS
6 Recharge 4 Laser (GB) - 18 HS
crew = 1 pilot + 8 engineering + 2 power + 6 weapon = 17


For an overall mass of 31 HS.  If I assume the actual coupling for a GB rack costs 1 HS for every 10 on the GB, then I would have to design a rack for this GB:

Avenger GB rack - 34 HS  (4 for couplings + 50% original systems size = 30), crew = 64 ( 32 engineering + 8 power + 24 weapon)
or
Avenger GB rack - 49 HS (4 for couplings + 75% original systems size = 45),  crew = 64 ( 32 engineering + 8 power + 24 weapon)

As you can see, the basing facilities (tonnage, cost and crew) for GB are VERY expensive.  I view this a similar to aircraft carriers - there are a couple of thousand air wing crew and a big chunck of the tonnage of a CV to support maybe 1000 tons of aircraft with crew of 100-200.

The nice part of the above is you don't have to worry about putting a bunch of hand-waving in (e.g. artificially limit to one engine due to "instability"), and you don't need to worry about someone putting a lot of them into large ships (they can, they'll just need a REALLY big tender to support the GB).  In other words, the difference between a GB and a "blue water" combatant is that the GB has offloaded a LOT of its tonnage/crew to a basing facility.

You could even have a line of "GB size reduction" tech e.g. 15%, 30%, 40%, 50% offload so that the advantages of having GB wouldn't all accrue from day 1.

As for jumping, GB would work just like any other ship without jump engines, i.e. have to go through with a jump ship or jump gate.  I prefer Erik's view of the tender having external racks (just like sub tenders, where the subs tie up alongside) rather than internal boat bays so as to keep the tender's mass down (so it can make it through the jump point) - the GB can be escorted through since they've got the same engines as anyone else.  In principle I suppose you could even allow jump engines in a GB, except it wouldn't make much economic sense since the size of ships it could escort would still depend on it's (smaller) mass and the total cost of the jump engine (including the tender) would be the same or greater.

Is that clear/does that help?

Thanks,
John

PS - I think you've posted since I started this post, so I'm going to go ahead and hit "send" rather than trying to adjust the above.
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Post by: sloanjh on October 08, 2007, 12:13:56 PM
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
Firstly, I agree this is looking a lot like the LACs from Honorverse :)

Steve Walmsley


Hi Steve,

  I was about to say "yep LACs", but then I thought some more.  I think what you've got coded up is close to GB in Starfire, i.e. a small ship with a very powerful but limited engine.  I think my original suggestion could also extend to parasite ships (some has big as BB or CA) from Dahak or the March to the X books.

  At this point, it looks like the major difference between what you've got coded up and my thoughts is that you've got a high power/weight engine that's controlled in the game balance sense by some severe limitations (most important 1/ship).  My thoughts are to allow low-weight (but same capability) versions of most on-board systems (hadn't thought about sensors/fire control), and to control it in game balance by requiring that the "reduced" weight (and cost and crew) be placed in off-ship support facilities.  Actually, I think I like both ideas :-)  

I agree that yours is less risky from the point of view of "game breaker" tech - there's a chance that the new ship designs could become so powerful that everyone needs to use them.  Even if that happens, though, the tenders are going to be very slow and vulnerable.  My suspicion, however, is that they'll be most useful for system defense, i.e. LACs and at worst make power project against enemy planets a much tougher proposition (which I think fits into your hopes for Aurora).

I think this is the point that I say "it's your game and you're doing the coding - whatever you want to do (one, both, or none) is fine with me"

Thanks,
John

PS - now that I think of it, I think my proposal is in the same spirit of System Defense Ships in Traveller, with endurance and basing facilities being the trade-off rather than jump capability.
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Post by: SteveAlt on October 08, 2007, 12:26:24 PM
I just reread this before sending and it sounds a little like I am being critical. Its not intended that way but I need to try and get my concerns across so please don't take offence at anything here. It may be I have just misunderstood.

Quote from: "sloanjh"
 I was actually thinking more along the lines having a "gunboat item" property for engines, weapons systems, power plants, etc. that gives a 50% size reduction.  For every gunboat class, there would have to be a special "gunboat rack" design, which would have the coupling device (i.e. the boat bay or external rack) PLUS the mass that was left off the gunboat items (plus maybe a mass penalty, so e.g. 75% the mass of the non-gunboat systems).  This gunboat rack would be a system that could be added to a "tender", which would either be a ship or PDC design.

For example, let's say I had designed the following non-GB systems (sorry I'm not using your design conventions):

MHD engine - 5 HS, crew = 25
24pt Power Plant - 4 HS, crew = 10
Recharge 4 Laser - 6 HS, crew = 5

I could then design equivalent GB systems that would have masses of 2.5, 2, and 3 HS respectively.  I could then design a GB class with the components (assume GB components require 1/5 crew):

GB Avenger
1 cockpit - 1HS
4 MHD engine (GB) - 10 HS
1 24pt Power Plant (GB) - 2 HS
6 Recharge 4 Laser (GB) - 18 HS
crew = 1 pilot + 8 engineering + 2 power + 6 weapon = 17
The problem is that you are introducing a completely new concept that has a lot of knock on implications. For example, why can't I have a ship that only uses the half size lasers and reactors but full size everything else? Presumably that would give me a lot more firepower for minimal basing requirements.

Quote
For an overall mass of 31 HS.  If I assume the actual coupling for a GB rack costs 1 HS for every 10 on the GB, then I would have to design a rack for this GB:

Avenger GB rack - 34 HS  (4 for couplings + 50% original systems size = 30), crew = 64 ( 32 engineering + 8 power + 24 weapon)
or
Avenger GB rack - 49 HS (4 for couplings + 75% original systems size = 45),  crew = 64 ( 32 engineering + 8 power + 24 weapon)

As you can see, the basing facilities (tonnage, cost and crew) for GB are VERY expensive.  I view this a similar to aircraft carriers - there are a couple of thousand air wing crew and a big chunck of the tonnage of a CV to support maybe 1000 tons of aircraft with crew of 100-200.

The nice part of the above is you don't have to worry about putting a bunch of hand-waving in (e.g. artificially limit to one engine due to "instability"), and you don't need to worry about someone putting a lot of them into large ships (they can, they'll just need a REALLY big tender to support the GB).  In other words, the difference between a GB and a "blue water" combatant is that the GB has offloaded a LOT of its tonnage/crew to a basing facility.
The question I have to ask for plausibility purposes is how? Some things like engineering could presumably be offloaded in return for a high failure rate but a half size magazine isn't going to hold as much as a full size one and I am not sure that having half size but fully capable shields, lasers or sensors because some of their normal shipboard functionality would be on board a different ship would be realistic. For systems like fire control or missile launchers there are already rules for making them larger or smaller so any new rule would be in contradiction to that rule.

Quote
You could even have a line of "GB size reduction" tech e.g. 15%, 30%, 40%, 50% offload so that the advantages of having GB wouldn't all accrue from day 1.
Unfortunately this would also lead to requests for normal ship-systems to shrink over time. If you can make gunboat systems smaller over time through technology, why can't you make ship systems smaller over time through technology?

Quote
Is that clear/does that help?

I am concerned that this would create half size ships with full-size capabilities with a hand-wavium that there is a tender involved. Using these rules we would see a lot of 10,000 ton gunboats that would be superior to 'normal' ships and in fact become the standard. I understand the idea but I am concerned it isn't realsitic within the game mechanics. I am happy to try and create realistic smaller ships but they will have to abide by the same game principles as larger ships. It's back to the super-fighter-lasers of Starfire.

When something is made smaller, there has to be some significant penalty to the actual system. The new smaller missile launchers are very slow firing and the new 'gunboat' engine discussed earlier in this thread has a restriction of one per ship plus massive fuel use and high explosion probability. Smaller items have to be useful for a particular situation and not generally useful in all situations

Would the gunboat concept I have laid out in this thread not meet your requrements for a small, fast attack craft anyway? I am looking at ways to hold them on board motherships at the moment.

Steve
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Post by: Erik L on October 08, 2007, 12:51:39 PM
Hmmm

About the engines. Instead of forcing there to be 1 only, allow multiple to be placed, but if one blows, give the others highly increased chances of going with it.

Net effect, you'll most likely see 1 only, except for the speed-mad suicidal races. ;)
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Post by: SteveAlt on October 08, 2007, 01:02:08 PM
Quote from: "Erik Luken"
Hmmm

About the engines. Instead of forcing there to be 1 only, allow multiple to be placed, but if one blows, give the others highly increased chances of going with it.

Net effect, you'll most likely see 1 only, except for the speed-mad suicidal races. ;)

If I did that I may as well forget the whole power efficiency tech line. The idea of the 'gunboat' engine is to allow a new type of small, fast ships that sit between fighters and 'normal' ships. If I allow multiple engines I am concerned you will see a lot of huge warships with GB engines, counting on speed to reduce overall damage and compensate for any additional engine damage. If that happens, then ship speeds double overnight and everything else will have to be adjusted to compensate. Sorry if I sound negative over this but I am very happy with the way everything fits together at the moment and I am reluctant to introduce any major change that could affect the whole game system.

Steve
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Post by: Þórgrímr on October 08, 2007, 01:09:09 PM
Steve, I like it the way you have it thought out as of now, since it would allow me to add something like the Patrol Torpedo boats used in WW2. Now all I need is a PT Tender and I can ambush those nasty alien invaders with a swarm of torpedos and run for the hills while reloading.  :D

Plus I never liked the concept of Battleriders, even when Traveller introed them all those years ago. IMO parasites should be small, quick and just as quick to die. They were, after all, designed as attrition units.

To me, designing a battlewagon that can't even escape on its own is just asking for an asskicking.




 Cheers,
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Post by: SteveAlt on October 08, 2007, 01:48:57 PM
Some assistance required :)

I am looking at the concept of motherships for smaller 'normal' ships, such as the gunboat, or whatever we end up calling it. At the moment I am trying to figure out what pieces of code need to be changed for this situation. While I realise no one can help me code, it would be useful to think of situations where the a ship would be affected but not a parasite ship, for want of a better term, inside the mothership

For example, a parasite won't use fuel when the fleet moves and it won't check spares. I have coded both of these situations but I know there are going to be a lot more that I haven't thought of yet. Any suggestions as to where to look would be welcome.

EDIT: Added destruction of all parasites if mothership is destroyed.
EDIT #2: Added movement all parasites between fleets when mothership moves between fleets.
EDIT #3: Excluded parasites from Raise Shields and Activate Sensors orders

Steve
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Post by: Erik L on October 08, 2007, 02:24:33 PM
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
Some assistance required :)

I am looking at the concept of motherships for smaller 'normal' ships, such as the gunboat, or whatever we end up calling it. At the moment I am trying to figure out what pieces of code need to be changed for this situation. While I realise no one can help me code, it would be useful to think of situations where the a ship would be affected but not a parasite ship, for want of a better term, inside the mothership

For example, a parasite won't use fuel when the fleet moves and it won't check spares. I have coded both of these situations but I know there are going to be a lot more that I haven't thought of yet. Any suggestions as to where to look would be welcome.

EDIT: Added destruction of all parasites if mothership is destroyed.
EDIT #2: Added movement all parasites between fleets when mothership moves between fleets.
EDIT #3: Excluded parasites from Raise Shields and Activate Sensors orders

Steve


Refuel/Reload Ordnance?
Jumps.

hmm... thinking about your edit #2. Maybe implement a launch readiness state. The closer the parasite is to that, the better chances of launching prior to mothership destruction.
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Post by: wildfire142 on October 08, 2007, 02:35:52 PM
When the mothership reloads it magazines the parasites magazines are also reloaded from the colony etc as long as the right type of missile are availible.
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Post by: SteveAlt on October 08, 2007, 02:41:25 PM
Quote from: "Erik Luken"
Refuel/Reload Ordnance?
That one should be OK. I am going to try and leave the parasite as a normal part of the fleet but then exclude it when necessary (rather than the reverse). When a fleet refuels or reloads (or is refuelled or reloading by another fleet) then the parasites should be treated exactly the same as every other ship (I hope :))

Quote
Jumps.
That's a good point. Normal jumps will be fine but combat transits will need looking at so that parasites do not count against the number of ships jumping.

Quote
hmm... thinking about your edit #2. Maybe implement a launch readiness state. The closer the parasite is to that, the better chances of launching prior to mothership destruction.

Good idea. Perhaps this could be linked to the Abandon Ship button.

Steve
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Post by: SteveAlt on October 08, 2007, 02:43:39 PM
Quote from: "wildfire142"
When the mothership reloads it magazines the parasites magazines are also reloaded from the colony etc as long as the right type of missile are availible.

That should happen as I have it setup now. With regard to reloading and refuelling from the mothership stores when a parasite lands, I think I will set that to happen automatically.

Steve
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Post by: SteveAlt on October 08, 2007, 02:57:33 PM
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
That's a good point. Normal jumps will be fine but combat transits will need looking at so that parasites do not count against the number of ships jumping.

Parasites now jump with their mothership and do not count against the number of ships for combat transits. They also refuel automatically on landing.

Steve
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Post by: sloanjh on October 08, 2007, 03:07:41 PM
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
I just reread this before sending and it sounds a little like I am being critical. Its not intended that way but I need to try and get my concerns across so please don't take offence at anything here. It may be I have just misunderstood.

Not a problem - no offence.  I (think I) understand your concerns.
Quote
The problem is that you are introducing a completely new concept that has a lot of knock on implications. For example, why can't I have a ship that only uses the half size lasers and reactors but full size everything else? Presumably that would give me a lot more firepower for minimal basing requirements.
Because a few days out from base on the deployment, the lasers and reactors would be broken with no way to fix them.  The idea is that the tonnage associated with a particular weapons system on a blue-water combatant is a lot more than just the actual weapon - it's all the infrastructure (and people) to fix the thing when it breaks down 10 days out.  Consider a Sparrow launcher: when it's part of a point-defense installation on a ship, if it breaks the person who fixes it is part of the crew, with tools that are stored on-board.  When it's a launch rail on a fighter, the person who fixes it lives at the airbase and uses tools from a shed on-base.  This was the idea about having a rapid maintenance clock - there's a short-time maintenance cycle that is going on all the time that's completely abstracted away in Aurora.  If the clock were set up to run 10x or 100x as fast as normal from the point of view of breakage (but not spare consumption) that would prevent the sort of laser scenario you're worried about.
Quote
The question I have to ask for plausibility purposes is how? Some things like engineering could presumably be offloaded in return for a high failure rate but a half size magazine isn't going to hold as much as a full size one and I am not sure that having half size but fully capable shields, lasers or sensors because some of their normal shipboard functionality would be on board a different ship would be realistic. For systems like fire control or missile launchers there are already rules for making them larger or smaller so any new rule would be in contradiction to that rule.
The systems I was mainly concerned about were big hunks of metal, like power plant, laser/torpedo/etc. mounts, engines, etc.  I was about to say "the smaller missile launchers fit in with this idea" but after some thought decided that from a consistency point of view the GB idea would still apply (although maybe with less of a size reduction) - there's got to be tonnage on a warship associated with maintaining the missile launchers etc., as opposed to the tonnage of the launchers themselves.

Note that the GB size "reduction" (actually a tonnage division into two parts) would be on top of any other size reduction/growth mechanisms.

I'm pretty flexible on the point of missiles, however - if you thought it didn't make sense or put in too much imbalance I could live with systems like missiles, magazine, fire control, sensors, etc not having GB variants and requiring full-size installations.

Quote
Quote
You could even have a line of "GB size reduction" tech e.g. 15%, 30%, 40%, 50% offload so that the advantages of having GB wouldn't all accrue from day 1.
Unfortunately this would also lead to requests for normal ship-systems to shrink over time. If you can make gunboat systems smaller over time through technology, why can't you make ship systems smaller over time through technology?
Aaaah - but you're not shrinking the systems; you're just getting more efficient at off-loading the relevant bits.  The total (GB+Base) tonnage, crew, and cost of the system stays the same (and might even go up if you've got a penalty for offloaded bits).  I'm not married to this part of the idea, I just thought it might be helpful from a gameplay point of view.

If we didn't have the "GB offload ratio" tech (a much less loaded name than "size reduction"), then that also allows changing the size ratio to shift GB balance, i.e. if 50% is too drastic then you might use 25%

Quote
I am concerned that this would create half size ships with full-size capabilities with a hand-wavium that there is a tender involved. Using these rules we would see a lot of 10,000 ton gunboats that would be superior to 'normal' ships and in fact become the standard. I understand the idea but I am concerned it isn't realsitic within the game mechanics. I am happy to try and create realistic smaller ships but they will have to abide by the same game principles as larger ships. It's back to the super-fighter-lasers of Starfire.

When something is made smaller, there has to be some significant penalty to the actual system. The new smaller missile launchers are very slow firing and the new 'gunboat' engine discussed earlier in this thread has a restriction of one per ship plus massive fuel use and high explosion probability. Smaller items have to be useful for a particular situation and not generally useful in all situations

Would the gunboat concept I have laid out in this thread not meet your requrements for a small, fast attack craft anyway? I am looking at ways to hold them on board motherships at the moment.

Like I said, I think I understand where you're coming from.  I think the part you might be underestimating (or I may be overestimating :-) ).

Like I said - you're the one who's writing the game; all I'm doing is advocating.

Thanks Steve,
John
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Post by: sloanjh on October 08, 2007, 03:11:38 PM
Reading the thread updates on how far you've gotten with parasites... COOL!!!!!!!!!!

John
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Post by: SteveAlt on October 08, 2007, 03:54:23 PM
Quote from: "sloanjh"
Quote from: "SteveW"
The problem is that you are introducing a completely new concept that has a lot of knock on implications. For example, why can't I have a ship that only uses the half size lasers and reactors but full size everything else? Presumably that would give me a lot more firepower for minimal basing requirements.
Because a few days out from base on the deployment, the lasers and reactors would be broken with no way to fix them.  The idea is that the tonnage associated with a particular weapons system on a blue-water combatant is a lot more than just the actual weapon - it's all the infrastructure (and people) to fix the thing when it breaks down 10 days out.  Consider a Sparrow launcher: when it's part of a point-defense installation on a ship, if it breaks the person who fixes it is part of the crew, with tools that are stored on-board.  When it's a launch rail on a fighter, the person who fixes it lives at the airbase and uses tools from a shed on-base.  This was the idea about having a rapid maintenance clock - there's a short-time maintenance cycle that is going on all the time that's completely abstracted away in Aurora.  If the clock were set up to run 10x or 100x as fast as normal from the point of view of breakage (but not spare consumption) that would prevent the sort of laser scenario you're worried about.
OK, that makes a lot more sense now. If the maintenance clock is effectively speed up to a very high speed, then I can see that for certain systems you could leave out part of the support mechanism. I think the tricky bit might be deciding which systems could be 'shrunk' in this way. The other problem is that maintenance checks only take place every 5-days, although I guess I could add a GB-only maintenance check during every movement increment.

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Unfortunately this would also lead to requests for normal ship-systems to shrink over time. If you can make gunboat systems smaller over time through technology, why can't you make ship systems smaller over time through technology?
Aaaah - but you're not shrinking the systems; you're just getting more efficient at off-loading the relevant bits.  The total (GB+Base) tonnage, crew, and cost of the system stays the same (and might even go up if you've got a penalty for offloaded bits).  I'm not married to this part of the idea, I just thought it might be helpful from a gameplay point of view.
OK, that sounds more reasonable. I am still not sold on the general idea but I do understand the mechanics behind what you were suggesting a lot better now
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Would the gunboat concept I have laid out in this thread not meet your requrements for a small, fast attack craft anyway? I am looking at ways to hold them on board motherships at the moment.
Like I said, I think I understand where you're coming from.  I think the part you might be underestimating (or I may be overestimating :-) ).
I think the support tonnage sounds less hand-wavium now I understand the concept a little better. I know the single engine is hand-wavium but its consistent hand-wavium within the way the rest of the game works :)

Steve
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Post by: SteveAlt on October 08, 2007, 04:38:29 PM
I have added a Parasite Hangar to the game. I am open to a better name if someone can think of one.
The initial stats are Size 24 (1200 tons), Cost 100, Capacity 1000 tons, Crew 25. Dev Cost 10,000

This is a lot more basic than a fighter hangar as it is intended to carry fully capable ships. Essentially the hangar provides a docking space, fuel lines and a transfer mechanism for ammunition (if required). I might increase its size a little, depending on play testing. This ship has five Parasite Hangars and could carry six of the Kresta class Gunboats shown above.

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Borodino class Mothership    12750 tons     745 Crew     1460 BP      TCS 255  TH 900  EM 0
3529 km/s     Armour 1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 15/15/15/0/0     Damage Control 0-0     PPV 0
Parasite Capacity 5000 tons     Replacement Parts 10    

Sorokin S8 Ion Drive (15)    Power 60    Efficiency 0.80    Signature 60    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 500,000 Litres    Range 211.7 billion km   (694 days at full power)

Thermal Sensor TH3-15 (1)     Sensitivity 15     Detect Signature 100: 1.5m km
Active Sensor MR20000-R40 (1)     GPS 2000     Range 20.0m km    Resolution 40
Grav Pulse Detection Sensor GPD3-15 (1)     Sensitivity 15     Detect Strength 100: 1.5m km
EM Detection Sensor EM3-15 (1)     Sensitivity 15     Detect Strength 100: 1.5m km

Steve
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Post by: sloanjh on October 08, 2007, 05:59:55 PM
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
This is what I am concerned about. A new system having such a huge effect on the game that is becomes mandatory or causes a ripple effect throughout the game system. It really is unknown territory and we wouldn't know how big the impact would be until I have changed a lot of code. I created the modified system using existing mechanics within a couple of hours and I think its safe to assume it will add an extra dimension to the game without it becoming mandatory to deploy small, fast ships. Although I think they will add to system defences and possibly be a useful offensive tool when deployed from motherships.
Yep - I understand completely.  I'm just happy you put the modified system in - I think it goes a long way towards addressing the "I want fighters that can attack with beam weapons" complaint.  It's a perfectly valid decision not to want to go the high-risk route.  Nothing you've coded up with the parasites precludes it if you decide to go that way later, BTW.

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I am not sure I like the idea of potentially destroyer sized ships or above with such a restriction on range but that is a personal opinion not a game mechanic problem. However, I think this would lead to a new type of ship within the game with rules especially for that type. You would have Ship, PDC and Gunboat rules, which would lead to a lot of complexities. What I am trying to do at the moment is create a fast patrol type ship which will operate within existing, tested, mechanics.
Like you, I think it would be silly (and probably sub-optimal) to build a CA or BB with an endurance of a day.  One of the reasons I liked the "battlerider" idea (new name, given that GB/parasites are taken by what you coded up) is that the game wouldn't prevent that design choice.

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As for the GB concept you laid out, yes, it sounds like they'll make small fast attack craft.  The only thing I'm worried about is endurance - even sucking fuel down at 10x, I fear they'll be able to go out on 1-month sorties.
I think that's likely because you could add more fuel than the Kresta model I used above. Given the size of Aurora systems though, a 1 month sortie may not be a bad thing. Its means they could attack intruders at some distance from the planet, or launch raids into a system while the motherships remain in the outer system.
Good point.  OTOH, I also like the idea of forcing the mothership to come in within detection range rather than stooging around the outer system.

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I think we probably have a different idea in mind for these small craft. You are probably thinking Starfire gunboats while I am thinking about Soviet missile boats, like an Osa or even Soviet Corvettes, like a Grisha or Tarantul, and Honorverse LACs.
Actually, I was literally thinking in terms of carrier aircraft, at least at first - I wanted a "reasonable" way for a group of (potentially) 1-man, short range ships with heavy basing requirements to carry a decent (non-missile) offensive punch and be survivable at beam range.  I agree that the end result is like Osa or Pegasus (or was the class Hercules?) or WWII PT boats.  If it turns out that they're actually not very survivable, then a potential tweak is still possible - the "agility" stuff that would make fast ships even harder to hit.


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I think the support tonnage sounds less hand-wavium now I understand the concept a little better. I know the single engine is hand-wavium but its consistent hand-wavium within the way the rest of the game works :-)

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Like I said - you're the one who's writing the game; all I'm doing is advocating.
I very much appreciate the thought that goes into the ideas even if I don't always agree with everything :).

I'm just happy you jumped on the idea (albeit modifed) so quickly and with such enthusiasm - I hoped it was something people would go "ooh" over.

Thanks,
John
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Post by: Þórgrímr on October 08, 2007, 06:29:09 PM
Just a li'l blurb on the AGP's, PT Tenders, of WW2.  :D

In forward areas, Tenders served as a mothership for PT's, supplying gasoline, supplies and equipment. They also supplied torpedoes, ammunitions as well as basic engineering and electrical repair work. Tenders also served as a mess, furnished fresh water showers and generated additional electrical supply for moored boats. In later war years the Tenders became more sophisticated with complete overhaul shops, A-frames and/or towed floating dry-docks.




Cheers,
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Post by: SteveAlt on October 08, 2007, 07:02:31 PM
To avoid getting over-complicated with the bridge idea, I have modified the design code so that ships of 1000 tons or less, don't need a bridge.

Steve
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Post by: SteveAlt on October 08, 2007, 07:10:28 PM
[quote="
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Post by: SteveAlt on October 08, 2007, 08:11:56 PM
Parasite Launch and Recover Rules

Parasites are now launching and landing from Motherships. To keep this as simple as possible, the launching and landing are done using buttons on the Fleet Moves and/or Ship Windows. I'll add some orders later when I see how things are working out.

1) Each ship can have one Assigned Mothership, which is set using a dropdown on the Ship window. If you tell this ship to Land it will attempt to land on its Assigned Mothership if it is in the same location. On landing, it will automatically refuel from the mothership's fuel capacity. While a ship is docked, it can be assigned a different mothership so that next time it launches, it will land on a different ship. The Ship window shows the Actual Mothership (if it is docked) and the Assigned Mothership (which is the ship on which it will attempt to land if given a land command). These may be different.

2) Motherships have a list of docked parasite ships on the Ship window. On the Fleet Moves window, all ships in the fleet are shown, whether currently docked or not. However, docked ships will have the mothership in parantheses after their name)

3) The Ship window has two buttons for parasite ships, Launch and Land, which will be enabled or disabled depending on the current status. If Launch is pressed, the parasite ship launches and remains part of the same fleet as the mothership. If Land is pressed and the Assigned Mothership is in the same location, the parasite ship will dock and become part of its mothership's fleet.

4) The Ship window has two buttons for motherships, Release and Recover. If Release is pressed, all docked parasite ships will be launched and remain part of the same fleet as the mothership. If Recover is pressed all parasite ships in the same location, assigned to the current mothership will dock and become part of the mothership's fleet. If individual ships need to be launched or recovered, use the ship window for the Parasite. If all parasites are to be launched or recovered, use the ship window for the Mothership

5) The Fleet Moves window has two buttons relating to Parasites, Launch Para and Recover Para. If Launch Para is pressed, all docked parasite ships within the fleet will be launched and will remain part of the same fleet as their motherships. If Recover Para is pressed, all parasite ships in the same location that are assigned to a mothership within the fleet will dock and become part of their motherships' fleet.

In all cases, ships will only dock if sufficient space is available on the mothership.

All the above is coded and working.

Steve
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Post by: Erik L on October 08, 2007, 08:35:59 PM
One request on the launch bit. Stick the launched parasites into a separate TF.
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Post by: MWadwell on October 08, 2007, 09:24:02 PM
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
1) Each ship can have one Assigned Mothership, which is set using a dropdown on the Ship window. If you tell this ship to Land it will attempt to land on its Assigned Mothership if it is in the same location. On landing, it will automatically refuel from the mothership's fuel capacity. While a ship is docked, it can be assigned a different mothership so that next time it launches, it will land on a different ship. The Ship window shows the Actual Mothership (if it is docked) and the Assigned Mothership (which is the ship on which it will attempt to land if given a land command). These may be different.


What might be an idea, is to allow the mothership to be changed if the parasite has been launched - otherwise you could end up with the situation where a launched parasite cannot land, as it's assigned motherships has been destroyed (and the parasite cannot be re-assigned a new mothership).
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Post by: Michael Sandy on October 09, 2007, 01:28:13 AM
For keeping the engines out of larger ships, how about this:

Because these engines are very precisely tuned, there is energy expensive interference the more of them you have.

And it goes up proportional to the number of engine interactions you can have.  If E is the number of engines, then multiply fuel consumption rate by 1.01 x E!.  That is, E factorial.

So 1 engine, not a problem.  +1% fuel consumption.  3 engines, +6%.
6 engines is 6*5*4*3*2 interaction issues, or +720% fuel consumption.

The weapons these things are armed with will have to be pretty short ranged, because you won't be able to fit a tracking system for long ranged stuff.

Also, perhaps they shouldn't have armor rating 1, either for the mass required or the protection level.

Maybe have some kind of energy storage system instead of a generator so that it can fire a number of full power shots and then have to wait a while before firing again.  So if you need a size 2 generator to keep up with a given energy load, perhaps a size 1 energy bank could power 60 seconds worth of fire.

Unfortunately, that gets in to energy budget stuff and complaints from big ship owners about unfired weapons still drawing power, etc...
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Post by: Brian Neumann on October 09, 2007, 04:50:37 AM
Currently there is still the possiblility of using missle weapons with the parasite ships.  If you do want that possiblility then you probably need a small magazine.  Say 1hs and 50 point capacity.  This is just big enough for one or two reloads of missles, assuming that the parasite uses the really small, slow firing option for it's missle launchers that you have already coded.  This would allow for a "torpedo" boat with four or five missles to fire and a very long reload time.

Brian
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Post by: Pete_Keller on October 09, 2007, 07:52:19 AM
Sorry guys, this is a long rambling post.

Quote from: "SteveAlt"
Another idea is some type of mobile maintenance facility for ships of up to a certain size. However, MF use minerals/weath so the mobile facility would have to have access to minerals as well (from a cargo hold perhaps) but then you would need to specify what minerals to reload on a regular basis and that could get messy.

There is nothing to prevent very large parasites being carried so anything I come up with that works for parasites would have to work for all ships. I am open to ideas.

Steve


I like the idea of mobile maintenance facilities.  

Are all spaceships able to land on planets?  

If so, you make the MMF land on a planet, take a week or so to "setup", become active and perform maintenance, and take a week or so to "tear down".  If they have to "bug out" in an emergency, they can take off after ~24 hours. but they lose all the MMF specific capabilities until they get refitted back.  You (Steve) create two tech items, that are the same size, one is MMF, the other is "broken MMF" (need a better name than that).  If you bug out, the bugout code changes MMF to "Broken MMF" and the only way to fix it is to refit the tender.

If you cannot land spaceships on planets, you will need to code in some way of transferring cargo from ship to ship to keep the MMF resupplied with minerals.

---

Another thing is size of the MMF.  To transport 1 MF (200 Tons capability/4 hull spaces maintenance capability) it takes 50 Hull Spaces.  

The Tender should be able to use the MMF to keep it's clock from rolling forward at too great of a pace even if the MMF does not have the hull space capacity to maintain the tender.  (if the MMF is active the tender's clock should roll forward at a reduced pace since the MMF is able to produce parts to fix most tender issues)

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What do we want the MMF to be able to do?  Should it do major refits, minor refits, Repairs?

Pete
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Post by: Þórgrímr on October 09, 2007, 08:10:50 AM
If you want to simulate something like the AGP Tenders from WW2, then I would suggest that at first, all they could do was keep the clock from going forward to the attached parasites and minor overhauls, then with tech increases add components that eventually add major overhauls and repairs.

From what I have been reading refits to another class of PT was still done at major naval bases or repair yards like Ulithi. So I would keep refits at SY's.

That's just my .02$  :D



Cheers,
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Post by: SteveAlt on October 09, 2007, 10:18:54 AM
Quote from: "Erik Luken"
One request on the launch bit. Stick the launched parasites into a separate TF.

That was my initial idea. However, you could end up with a lot of small TFs if you start launching some but not all parasites when you might want all those in one TF. So I thought if I put them in the same TF as the motherships, then players would be able to use all the various detachment options on the Fleet Moves window to organise their smaller shps and I wouldn't have to replicate that functionality. For example, if you wanted to use corvettes size ships as escorts, with seperate TFs you could end up launching them, adding them back to the main body and then detaching them again as escorts so you can save the formation. Equally, if you wanted them in specific groups it would be easier to detach them from one main fleet than try and sort out all the smaller TFs.

Steve
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Post by: SteveAlt on October 09, 2007, 10:21:05 AM
Quote from: "MWadwell"
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
1) Each ship can have one Assigned Mothership, which is set using a dropdown on the Ship window. If you tell this ship to Land it will attempt to land on its Assigned Mothership if it is in the same location. On landing, it will automatically refuel from the mothership's fuel capacity. While a ship is docked, it can be assigned a different mothership so that next time it launches, it will land on a different ship. The Ship window shows the Actual Mothership (if it is docked) and the Assigned Mothership (which is the ship on which it will attempt to land if given a land command). These may be different.

What might be an idea, is to allow the mothership to be changed if the parasite has been launched - otherwise you could end up with the situation where a launched parasite cannot land, as it's assigned motherships has been destroyed (and the parasite cannot be re-assigned a new mothership).

Sorry I didn't explain that very well. A parasite can be assigned a mothership at any time. I was making the point above about assigning inside motherships to show it could be done as well as when the ship was in space, but ended up making it seem as if that was the only time it could be done.

Steve
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Post by: SteveAlt on October 09, 2007, 10:25:01 AM
Quote from: "Michael Sandy"
For keeping the engines out of larger ships, how about this:

Because these engines are very precisely tuned, there is energy expensive interference the more of them you have.

And it goes up proportional to the number of engine interactions you can have.  If E is the number of engines, then multiply fuel consumption rate by 1.01 x E!.  That is, E factorial.

So 1 engine, not a problem.  +1% fuel consumption.  3 engines, +6%.
6 engines is 6*5*4*3*2 interaction issues, or +720% fuel consumption.
The technobabble I have used in my current campaign is as follows:

"Scientists on Alexandria have completed their research into increasing our rate of wealth production. They now turn their attention to a new proposal by Governor Sorokin. She believes she can use a series of electro-magnets to create a boosted engine with twice its normal power. The drawbacks to this engine would include extremely high fuel use, probably ten times normal, and a propensity to explode when hit. In addition, the magnetic field would destabilise in proximity to another field of the same type, so only one of these highly boosted engines would be possible on a ship. While these drawbacks are significant, Captain 2nd Sorokin believes the engine could enable us to create small, fast ships with limited range that would be ideal for system defence. Given her past successes in the propulsion field, Star Marshal Alexeyev has given her permission to proceed."

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The weapons these things are armed with will have to be pretty short ranged, because you won't be able to fit a tracking system for long ranged stuff.
I agree, although you could make them a little slower with longer ranged weapons by increasing their size

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Maybe have some kind of energy storage system instead of a generator so that it can fire a number of full power shots and then have to wait a while before firing again.  So if you need a size 2 generator to keep up with a given energy load, perhaps a size 1 energy bank could power 60 seconds worth of fire.

Unfortunately, that gets in to energy budget stuff and complaints from big ship owners about unfired weapons still drawing power, etc...

The way to handle this would be to create slow firing weapons and use a small reactor. Although small, fast-firing weapons might give better overall damage.

Steve
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Post by: SteveAlt on October 09, 2007, 10:25:55 AM
Quote from: "Brian"
Currently there is still the possiblility of using missle weapons with the parasite ships.  If you do want that possiblility then you probably need a small magazine.  Say 1hs and 50 point capacity.  This is just big enough for one or two reloads of missles, assuming that the parasite uses the really small, slow firing option for it's missle launchers that you have already coded.  This would allow for a "torpedo" boat with four or five missles to fire and a very long reload time.

Last night I added a 1 HS magazine with 60 storage :)

Steve
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Post by: Brian Neumann on October 09, 2007, 10:36:10 AM
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Last night I added a 1 HS magazine with 60 storage  

Steve


Thanks,
Brian
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Post by: SteveAlt on October 09, 2007, 10:39:28 AM
Quote from: "Pete_Keller"
I like the idea of mobile maintenance facilities.  

Are all spaceships able to land on planets?  
No, they just move into orbit.

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If so, you make the MMF land on a planet, take a week or so to "setup", become active and perform maintenance, and take a week or so to "tear down".  If they have to "bug out" in an emergency, they can take off after ~24 hours. but they lose all the MMF specific capabilities until they get refitted back.  You (Steve) create two tech items, that are the same size, one is MMF, the other is "broken MMF" (need a better name than that).  If you bug out, the bugout code changes MMF to "Broken MMF" and the only way to fix it is to refit the tender.

If you cannot land spaceships on planets, you will need to code in some way of transferring cargo from ship to ship to keep the MMF resupplied with minerals.

Another thing is size of the MMF.  To transport 1 MF (200 Tons capability/4 hull spaces maintenance capability) it takes 50 Hull Spaces.  

The Tender should be able to use the MMF to keep it's clock from rolling forward at too great of a pace even if the MMF does not have the hull space capacity to maintain the tender.  (if the MMF is active the tender's clock should roll forward at a reduced pace since the MMF is able to produce parts to fix most tender issues)

I have been pondering this overnight to try and create a realistic way of handling it. It occurred to me that if a ship with maintenance facilities was restricted to working on ships within its internal hangar bay, then its maintenance facilities would be a lot less powerful than planet-based maintenance facilities that can work on many ships concurrently. As things stand, ships inside a hangar do not advance their maintenance clock anyway so maybe ship-based maintenance facilities could simply replace spare parts but could not perform the equivalent of a major overhaul.

Therefore, how about a maintenance bay using the same modular approach as the ground based facilities but that is a little more compact. It can only work on ships inside the hangar bay and only up the size of the maintenance facility. For example a ship with a 5000 ton hangar but only 1000 ton facilities could work on several 1000 ton ships but not a 5000 ton ship (which is the same approach as the ground-based facilities). This would allow the creation of tenders for several small ships  or a larger slower mothership with 5000 ton maintenance facilities that could work on several small ships or one large ship at a time.

The problem would still be the minerals though as the mothership would need to carry many different types. However, an option might be to have all spares produced by maintenance ships to be based solely on Duranium which they could carry in a cargo hold. Its a slight fudge but probably an acceptable one and its makes the maintenance ship feasible.

Steve
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Post by: SteveAlt on October 09, 2007, 10:43:23 AM
[quote="
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Post by: Pete_Keller on October 09, 2007, 11:03:59 AM
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
The problem would still be the minerals though as the mothership would need to carry many different types. However, an option might be to have all spares produced by maintenance ships to be based solely on Duranium which they could carry in a cargo hold. Its a slight fudge but probably an acceptable one and its makes the maintenance ship feasible.

Steve


Or, since the ships have to be internal to the docking  bay to be repaired, allow transfer of minerals and colonists inside the docking bay.

This is starting to sound like the mobile repair facility in Once a Hero by Elizabeth Moon -- ISBN-10: 0671878719, ISBN-13: 978-0671878719

Good book.

Pete
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Post by: Þórgrímr on October 09, 2007, 11:35:15 AM
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
LOL that is very similar to the post I just made before reading this. I think freezing the clock and minor overhauls only would be the way to go (and only for ships inside the bay equal to or less than to the size of the ship-board maintenance facilities).

Steve


Steve, the only problem I see in not allwoing tenders to eventually do major overhauls and repairs is that eventually you will be clogging up your other SY's doing major overhauls and repairs on the Gunboats.

Imagine this, you have a squadron of six PT's in Ulithi under repair and you get six destroyers who need the SY time. now won't that be irritating to say the least?  :D



Cheers,
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Post by: SteveAlt on October 09, 2007, 02:02:40 PM
[quote="
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Post by: Þórgrímr on October 09, 2007, 02:09:54 PM
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
That's not a problem in v2.3 as shipyards no longer handle overhauls. They are all done by maintenance facilities.

Steve


But the repairs, if I read your post correctly, will still have to be done in SY's. And if a player literally has dozens of these squadrons that is going to fill his SY's real fast with repairs on those bad boys.  :wink:



Cheers,
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Post by: SteveAlt on October 09, 2007, 02:17:08 PM
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Post by: SteveAlt on October 10, 2007, 07:07:54 AM
A couple of notes now I am designing small ships in my current campaign.

I have added new modifiers to fire controls, allowing 1.5x range / 1.5x size and 1.5x tracking speed / 1.5x size, although the fire control itself will also be rounded up to the nearest whole number. This new modifier is because one HS can be important when designing the new small craft and it allows a 3HS system with double range and 1.5x tracking speed, or vice versa.

One issue that concerned me a little regarding the small systems necessary for gunboats/LACs/corvettes (or whatever we end up calling them :)

Steve
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Post by: SteveAlt on October 10, 2007, 07:59:43 AM
The first actual campaign design using the new rules. I managed to squeeze everything in at 1000 tons to avoid having to use a bridge system. Notable points are the engine, which is a gunboat-mod Ion engine, boosted a little further by +5% power / -10% efficiency. Might have to pay some green taxes on this baby :). The Cross Dome is a new 0.5 HS active sensor (all sensors can now use 0.5 HS size in v2.4). The Kite Screech fire control is 2x tracking speed and 1.5x range for a 3HS system that provided 6400 km/s tracking speed for the 6300 km/s ship (boat?). The laser is a fully capable, fast firing 12cm and I used a new 1 HS reactor (you can also have 0.5 HS reactors). Finally I used 1 small engineering system, 2 small fuel systems and 2 small crew quarters (just kept the crew below 100). It was a lot of fun trying to pack this much capability into such a small package

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Tarantul class Fast Attack Craft    1000 tons     97 Crew     183 BP      TCS 20  TH 126  EM 0
6300 km/s     Armour 1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/0/0/0/0     Damage Control 0-0     PPV 4
Replacement Parts 1    

Sorokin SC88 Ion Drive (1)    Power 126    Efficiency 8.80    Signature 126    Armour 0    Exp 21%
Fuel Capacity 20,000 Litres    Range 9.8 billion km   (18 days at full power)

12cm C4 Near Ultraviolet Laser (1)    Range 72,000km     TS: 6300 km/s     Power 4-4     RM 3    ROF 5        4 4 4 3 2 2 1 0 0 0
Kite Screech (1)    Max Range: 72,000 km   TS: 6400 km/s     86 72 58 44 31 17 3 0 0 0
Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor (1)     Total Power Output 4    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Cross Dome (1)     GPS 75     Range 750k km    Resolution 15

Steve
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Post by: Þórgrímr on October 10, 2007, 09:50:58 AM
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
The first actual campaign design using the new rules. I managed to squeeze everything in at 1000 tons to avoid having to use a bridge system. Notable points are the engine, which is a gunboat-mod Ion engine, boosted a little further by +5% power / -10% efficiency. Might have to pay some green taxes on this baby :wink:



Cheers,
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Post by: Brian Neumann on October 10, 2007, 11:22:34 AM
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One issue that concerned me a little regarding the small systems necessary for gunboats/LACs/corvettes (or whatever we end up calling them ), is that larger ships may use multiples of them to pad damage. For example, you could use 5 GB Fuel storage instead of 1 normal fuel storage to absorb five hits instead of one. To prevent this, the damage allocation system will ignore systems less than one HS in size. This means they can't be hit but they also can't absorb damage and will be lost when the ship is destroyed. This avoids any 'padding' and it makes the small ships a little more vulnerable.


It may still be worth it for something like the fuel systems to have one hull space of fuel that can not be hit.  If you lose fuel in combat then the ship is dead in space.  Having a couple of 1/5 hs would be good

brian
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Post by: Brian Neumann on October 10, 2007, 02:16:13 PM
Quote from: "Brian"
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One issue that concerned me a little regarding the small systems necessary for gunboats/LACs/corvettes (or whatever we end up calling them ), is that larger ships may use multiples of them to pad damage. For example, you could use 5 GB Fuel storage instead of 1 normal fuel storage to absorb five hits instead of one. To prevent this, the damage allocation system will ignore systems less than one HS in size. This means they can't be hit but they also can't absorb damage and will be lost when the ship is destroyed. This avoids any 'padding' and it makes the small ships a little more vulnerable.

It may still be worth it for something like the fuel systems to have one hull space of fuel that can not be hit.  If you lose fuel in combat then the ship is dead in space.  Having a couple of 1/5 hs would be good

brian


Sorry for the way my post ended there.  My connection at work got severed unexpectedly.

The rest of what I was going to say is that having some systems that are less than a hs available as backup systems is probably a good thing for a warship.  A minimal radar for last ditch point defense and a fuel tank that can't be hit would actually make a ship more survivable.  Neither system would let the ship be considedered combat worthy, but they would let a ship get away without being quite so vulnerable.

Brian
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Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 13, 2007, 08:02:33 AM
[quote="
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Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 13, 2007, 08:03:21 AM
Quote from: "Brian"
The rest of what I was going to say is that having some systems that are less than a hs available as backup systems is probably a good thing for a warship.  A minimal radar for last ditch point defense and a fuel tank that can't be hit would actually make a ship more survivable.  Neither system would let the ship be considedered combat worthy, but they would let a ship get away without being quite so vulnerable.

Yes, that's a good point.

Steve
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Post by: Brian Neumann on October 13, 2007, 08:29:33 AM
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
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Post by: Pete_Keller on October 13, 2007, 08:45:36 AM
Quote from: "Brian"
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
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Post by: Þórgrímr on October 13, 2007, 09:20:45 AM
I would also prefer a new release with the FAC's to. I wanted to test out the concept of them being the new Roman Limitani by placing a the FAC Bays in PDC's and having them patrol within their regions.

Then having the naval version of the Auxilia be the FAC's. Since anybody who could actually survive a tour on a FAC facility, especially in wartime, would deserve Citizenship.  :D



 Cheers,
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Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 17, 2007, 07:48:19 AM
I was bored yesterday so I finally dove into the shipyard changes. It will be a few days before a new release because I need to test them. I'll make a separate post with the changes

Steve
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Post by: Pete_Keller on October 17, 2007, 10:08:31 AM
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
I was bored yesterday so I finally dove into the shipyard changes. It will be a few days before a new release because I need to test them. I'll make a separate post with the changes

Steve


Boo.... Hisss ....... :(

Pete