Aurora 4x
VB6 Aurora => Aurora Suggestions => Topic started by: Steve Walmsley on June 25, 2016, 06:27:56 PM
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I am considering a change to the way maintenance facilities work for C# Aurora so I thought I would seek feedback first :)
At the moment, if you have 100 maintenance facilities (for example) you can maintain ships of up to 20,000 tons. Furthermore, you can maintain any number of ships of 20,000 tons or less. There are a couple of drawbacks with this approach:
1) It can be quite difficult to build sufficient maintenance facilities to maintain very large ships and it is often easier to build several smaller ones instead.
2) It is very easy to maintain large numbers of small ships (one of the reasons that fighters are excluded from maintenance facilities).
For C# Aurora I am considering changing maintenance facilities so that each one has a much higher capacity (perhaps 1000 - 2000 tons instead of 200 tons). However, additional ships would require additional capacity. For example, 100,000 tons of capacity could maintain a single 100,000 ton ship, five 20,000 ton ships or twenty 5000 ton ships (or any combination).
If there are insufficient facilities available, the maintenance clock on ships at the facility would be based on the missing capacity. For example, if a population had 100,000 tons of capacity and 150,000 tons of military shipping was present, all ships would advance their clocks at 1/3rd normal speed. (200,000 tons of ships would be 1/2 speed, 400,000 tons would be 3/4 speed, etc.).
There are advantages and disadvantages to this approach:
1) It is much more realistic and larger fleet bases would be much more valuable.
2) It will be a lot easier to maintain very large ships
3) I can lift the restriction on fighters using maintenance facilities.
4) It would remove the maintenance advantages of small ships vs large ones.
5) It would be less obvious whether a ship could be fully maintained at a given population (although I would add a tab to the Economics window to track this in detail for each population)
In this situation, I would add a tech line that increased the capacity of maintenance facilities. I might also consider having some form of auto-overhaul if the maintenance facilities had excess capacity vs the ships in port (based on the amount of excess capacity vs total size of ships), which would remove some of the micromanagement for overhaul.
Comments?
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I like this idea, but only if maintenance facilities are slightly cheaper both in BP and personnel, since now I imagine I'll need to build more of them. Maybe military slipways that aren't presently building anything could count towards maintenance limit in a less efficient capacity?
Overall I think this is a great idea, especially if it makes the maintenance facility component for ships more useful.
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Sounds good to me, and I know a lot of people have suggested this in the past. You might need to significantly buff how much they support though. I'm assuming that in the case of a ship only getting partially maintained then the corresponding MSP consumed will be partial too?
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The current approach isn't without its merits, it mirrors some real-life constraints ("there are only so many drydocks large enough to service this ship"). An ability to service 1000 small ships doesn't equal the ability to service a single large one.
Also, the quantitative aspect is already taken care of by the planned need to manufacture MSPs.
With some of the planned changes, I'm already worried that it would be most attractive to play around the entire maintenance system (generous engineering spaces, recycle MSPs and scrap/salvage ships before they need servicing). Making the need for maintenance facilities scale with number of ships would increase the push to do so.
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I'm going to have to agree with Iranon. Having 100,000 tonnes of maintenance facilities should still not be able to handle a 150,000 tonne ship, even at reduced rates.
Perhaps have an 'Orbit' command (not extended orbit), which tells the ship to receive maintenance from any planet based maintenance facilities, and have that ship take up the maintenance capacity of the planet only when ordered to.
Alternative: Make maintenance facilities just like shipyards, with Maintenance Capacity (maximum amount of tonnage) and Max Ship Size (Largest ship possible). Then allow maintenance facilities to expand just like a shipyard.
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I'm going to have to agree with Iranon. Having 100,000 tonnes of maintenance facilities should still not be able to handle a 150,000 tonne ship, even at reduced rates.
Perhaps have an 'Orbit' command (not extended orbit), which tells the ship to receive maintenance from any planet based maintenance facilities, and have that ship take up the maintenance capacity of the planet only when ordered to.
Alternative: Make maintenance facilities just like shipyards, with Maintenance Capacity (maximum amount of tonnage) and Max Ship Size (Largest ship possible). Then allow maintenance facilities to expand just like a shipyard.
Yes, I think it makes sense that no ship could be maintained (at all) if it was larger than the total maintenance capacity. However, a total tonnage of shipping greater than the capacity could be partially maintained as along as no single ship exceeded the capacity.
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I think we're forgetting that there is a difference between maintenance and overhaul. Shipyards perform overhaul and are limited by maximum berth size and number of slipways.
Major maintenance jobs are done in the shipyard, think engine replacement, sensor package removal and repair, major structural repair, etc.
Maintenance however is merely keeping equipment working, repairs, spare part replacement jobs, structural work being done piecemeal with cutting torches and welders etc. Not nessicarily limited by the absolute size of the ship but rather by materials and the amount of staff available to do the job. Maintenance doesn't make a ship brand new but rather slows the rate at which it falls apart.
So I think it makes sense that maintenance facilities are able to maintain a certain total capacity of ships, rather than a potentially infinate number of a certain size. Anything over the maintenance facility's size limit just stretches the resources and makes the work not as good.
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I like the idea of that change. It makes a lot more sense to me, now I can stop explaining to new people how it really works.
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Maintenance is more like "harbor facities" and should be limited to the total number of ships you can "tie up to the dock" at any one time. Pretty much as Mark says, we have shipyards which are the drydocks for refits and new builds. I would suggest making the costs scale though. As you tonnage maintainable grows the costs to increase it should grow as well. I'm not sure what I would suggest as a cost factor but say: the first 30-50K tonnes is one price range, then then to 100K it is higher and so on.
Major facilities should be more expnesive than something that can only handle a squadron.
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That doesn't make sense to me, if that is the case then why wouldn't I just build multiple smaller facilities on the same planet if big ones are super costly?
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I'm not really sure what the maintenance facility is actually meant to represent to begin with. Can somebody tell me? I'd thought of it as the support infrastructure needed to keep ships up to a certain tonnage from falling to pieces when they're idling in orbit, but couldn't a shipyard facility do the exact same thing? And if so, why don't we make shipyards contribute to maintenance limit when they have idle slipways?
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Because there are no "multiple smaller facilities." It is a single "harbor facility" and there is only one of them per planet it is just more expensive the more extensive it has to be. This reflects real life where a basic harbor capability was fast and easy to set up but as the harbor facility grows each new bit costs far more. Look at WW2 and the harbors the USN set up.
A maintenance facility is like a harbor facility in real life. They consist of machine shops, storage houses, piers the ships tie up to, handling tools (forklifts and cranes), on site housing etc. In the case of aurora power plants to power the ship and life support systems for maintaining the ship while their reactors are off line and other things like that. Basically the ship isn't sitting in orbit it is docked to a space station of some sort. If a ship is orbiting the planet it isn't getting "maintained by the planet."
So any ship using the orbit at x distance order should be on its onboard clock. Being in maintenance means docked to space station, just like in real life it means tied up to pier.
A dockyard is where you build ships. It is usually associated with a harbor facility but they are generally speaking different things. Pearl Harbor had extensive harbor facilities but so far as I know no construction capacity for example, though it does have drydocks. But in a wet navy you need a dry dock to do any major hull repair. This is likely covered in aurora by the fact that you need a shipyard to do hull repairs.
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Does it though? Ships can leave instantly from being at a planet. To me, it seems unlikely you have to physically dock at a space station. In zero g, it's much easier to move supplies and stuff around. Being in orbit is just that: being in orbit, and the maintenance personnel of the planet is available to fix any small issues. The docking process is when the ship is being overhauled.
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I really like the idea, although I think that just lumping all the tonnage together is a bit simplistic, and would make it a bit too easy to maintain really large ships. There are definite economies of scale in shore facilities, and a facility that is maxed out by a single battleship which it is capable of supporting without problem is a bit hard to believe.
I'd suggest making the maximum ship size that can be maintained something like (Yard Size)^(4/5). If this is the case, the point at which it takes twice the maximum ship size in yard size is when the yard is 64,000 tons and the ship is 32,000 tons. That's a bit lower than I'd prefer, but it's still decent. If we go with (Yard Size)^(3/4), we get a crossover at a yard of 16,000 tons and a ship of 8,000 tons. That 64,000 ton yard can support a ship of 22,600 tons now.
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A maintenance facility is like a harbor facility in real life. They consist of machine shops, storage houses, piers the ships tie up to, handling tools (forklifts and cranes), on site housing etc. In the case of aurora power plants to power the ship and life support systems for maintaining the ship while their reactors are off line and other things like that. Basically the ship isn't sitting in orbit it is docked to a space station of some sort. If a ship is orbiting the planet it isn't getting "maintained by the planet."
So any ship using the orbit at x distance order should be on its onboard clock. Being in maintenance means docked to space station, just like in real life it means tied up to pier.
Actually spaceship maintenance you would only need the machine shops, storage houses, handling tools, and a shuttlebay/cargolifters. Because you wouldn't need to actually dock a ship to perform basic maintenance in space because it can just sit there unpowered/lowpower in orbit. You just need to send parts and workers up in shuttles to do their jobs then go home afterwords. The maintenance modules you can put on ships are basically the same thing, the shops and storage along with a shuttle/cargolifter of some sort.
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I think we're forgetting that there is a difference between maintenance and overhaul. Shipyards perform overhaul and are limited by maximum berth size and number of slipways.
Major maintenance jobs are done in the shipyard, think engine replacement, sensor package removal and repair, major structural repair, etc.
Maintenance however is merely keeping equipment working, repairs, spare part replacement jobs, structural work being done piecemeal with cutting torches and welders etc. Not nessicarily limited by the absolute size of the ship but rather by materials and the amount of staff available to do the job. Maintenance doesn't make a ship brand new but rather slows the rate at which it falls apart.
So I think it makes sense that maintenance facilities are able to maintain a certain total capacity of ships, rather than a potentially infinate number of a certain size. Anything over the maintenance facility's size limit just stretches the resources and makes the work not as good.
Assuming most of this is talking about aurora: I think you're referring to old rules. More recent rules delegates all "Overhauling" operations to maintenance facilities. Shipyards only repair, refit, build, and scrap, currently.
That doesn't make sense to me, if that is the case then why wouldn't I just build multiple smaller facilities on the same planet if big ones are super costly?
Because there are no "multiple smaller facilities." It is a single "harbor facility" and there is only one of them per planet it is just more expensive the more extensive it has to be. This reflects real life where a basic harbor capability was fast and easy to set up but as the harbor facility grows each new bit costs far more. Look at WW2 and the harbors the USN set up.
Paul, I believe you misread Quake's statement. Quake is suggesting that, logically, if bigger facilities cost more, then wouldn't it make sense to allow us to build multiple smaller facilities, mechanically, to use less cost while allowing more capacity for smaller vessels? The idea therein that it doesn't make sense to make it so you're only allowed to have one facility per planet, if it's inherently beneficial to build multiple small ones, given those rules.
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That's what I get for reading through Steve's posts in chronological order, I'm remembering stuff that's really old XD
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Working on a ship in orbit is not "maintaining it" it is in orbit and on its own clock. If the ship is not putting on clock time it has to be tied up/docked. Anything else is illogical. I can set a ship to sitting out 1 km from the beach in the ocean near pearl harbor and send out small boats to give it supplies but that is no where near the same thing as when I bring the ship in and put it on a pier. Then I can really work on it...and it is fully supplied from the base.
I know what he said, about multiple small yards but this is also illogical. Each planet is one harbor and you have one harbor facility. So you can't build multiple small ones. This is just trying to game the system. It is bloody obviously that and nothing more.
Saying you can do the work in orbit is illogical. You can't turn off its reactor when it is in orbit. You can't put the ships life support on to the station services while you pump out and refil its fresh water tanks. You can't billet the crew in station side facilities, you can't fumagate the ship. The ship in orbit can only easily recieve supplies from the planet nothing more. What difference does the maintanence facility possibly make when the ship is not attached to it? By the aguement that it is all done by shuttle the ship should be maintainable anywhere in the star system the maintenance facility is located in. Since I can send things over in shuttles anywhere in the star system. There is no need what so ever to be in orbit around the planet except for shore leave of the crew if you want to use the shuttle stuff up argument.
Why do people have a problem that the ship has to be docked anyway? It will not affect the game any, except that now ships orbiting half way to mars aren't maintained by the planet.
Look at any military harbor and you see piers, and a huge base. Why do they need those things when you can just park the ship off the coast and send out techs by helicopter and dingy? Maintenance facilities in aurora are just the same sort of thing.
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It's just that in space, you don't need a pier to bring equipment and the like over. You have no need to anchor it. You can park it in orbit and it won't move.
As such, all the supplies, workshop etc don't require a fixed shipyard. If you have more workshop, you can maintain more tonnage of ships, and that's it.
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Perhaps a compromise is needed, leave maintenance facilities at their current 200 tons maximum size per facility but then also add a maximum total tonnage multiplier. Perhaps starting at total capacity of 5 times maximum size.
Tech lines could increase both maximum tonnage limit and maximum total capacity. It may get confusing but it seems like a pretty simple compromise.
With this system you couldn't game the system by making swarms of 1,000 ton FACs and get away with only having 5 maintenance facilities, with starting tech you can support 5 1,000 ton ships, or if you had 50 facilities there would be a 10,000 ton limit and 50,000 tons capacity, allowing 5 10,000 ton ships, or a veritable swarm of 50 FACs.
Similar to my last proposal I suggest reducing maintenance when facilities are overloaded past total capacity, but in addition the maximum tonnage limit is to be respected.
What do you think?
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If you go this way with Steve's proposal you need a mechanism to mothball ships. In the '60s and 70s when the RN had more ships than it could afford or man they would be moored in Fareham Creek and Chatham Dockyard with external machinery plastic wrapped and the ship dehumidified and sealed. (to be fair there were two grades of mothballing, one where the ship was likely to see renewed service and one where it was really a source of spares for sister ships.) It should cost ~10% maintenance supplies to mothball a ship and ~25% and x days/weeks to de-mothball a ship.
If this is not done you will just build space stations with the required hanger space to dock all your warships and incur no maintenance cost. Thus you only require sufficient maintenance facilities to maintain your space stations (which may or may not be less than required for your navy, I haven't worked it out).
If any of you have read books such as those written by Neil McCart on the service history of past RN vessels you realise that there were two types of maintenance: dockyard assisted maintenance and self maintenance even in port when the ships company (possibly using dockyard stores) carried out the required maintenance. This could obviously be done in remote anchorages. Remember that HMS Invincible changed an engine in the South Atlantic during the Falklands campaign while still underway.
This is the difference between maintenance and refit. the latter requiring full dockyard facilities, while the former does not.
Saying you can do the work in orbit is illogical. You can't turn off its reactor when it is in orbit. You can't put the ships life support on to the station services while you pump out and refill its fresh water tanks. You can't billet the crew in station side facilities,
Sorry Paul this is incorrect. When the Singapore base was operational, often when ships were in for maintenance the crew were billeted in HMS Terror, a shore establishment. If in Portsmouth then the crew would often be billeted in accommodation ships (decrepit warships) or shore facilities (HM Naval Barracks). Simply because if you are performing changes to a ship during a major overhaul (or even some minor ones) the living conditions ashore were much better than on-board, there may be no electric power aboard if generators are being repaired/replaced and there may be nowhere to accommodate crew on-board if accommodation is being upgraded short of a full refit.
A little off topic when a ship is scrapped could ALL components be recycled. In addition when a ship is refitted could the removed components be added to the planetary stockpile? The reason is simple. I refit my first line ships to the most modern spec. I can then use the removed components from these ships to refit my second (or third) line ships to extend their useful life.
Ian
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Working on a ship in orbit is not "maintaining it" it is in orbit and on its own clock. If the ship is not putting on clock time it has to be tied up/docked. Anything else is illogical. I can set a ship to sitting out 1 km from the beach in the ocean near pearl harbor and send out small boats to give it supplies but that is no where near the same thing as when I bring the ship in and put it on a pier. Then I can really work on it...and it is fully supplied from the base.
Yes and no. If it's anchored in the ocean proper, then it's clearly not 'in port'. But it's possible to be in port and not be tied up. Being in port means that you're in a protected anchorage, which wouldn't be the case in your example. A ship anchored out in the roadstead is in a significantly different position from one at sea, although not quite the same as one that's alongside. They'll still have a significant watch, and power will likely be provided by onboard auxiliaries. But they're not actually steaming.
Of course, Aurora is in space, so this is all kind of moot.
I know what he said, about multiple small yards but this is also illogical. Each planet is one harbor and you have one harbor facility. So you can't build multiple small ones. This is just trying to game the system. It is bloody obviously that and nothing more.
Why? Planets are really big (citation: look around you). If it's more expensive to go from supporting 100,000 tons to supporting 150,000 tons than it is to build a 50,000 ton yard from scratch, I can't see any logical reason this wouldn't work. The planet isn't so small it can't fit more than one. (And if you're assuming these are space stations, orbits aren't so small we couldn't fit more than one, either.) I'm in favor of making it more expensive to support larger ships, but there are ways to do that which don't involve making it more expensive to support large aggregate tonnages.
Saying you can do the work in orbit is illogical. You can't turn off its reactor when it is in orbit. You can't put the ships life support on to the station services while you pump out and refil its fresh water tanks. You can't billet the crew in station side facilities, you can't fumagate the ship. The ship in orbit can only easily recieve supplies from the planet nothing more.
I'm going to assume that you're using 'in orbit' to mean 'in orbit and not docked to a space station', because if you don't, this makes literally no sense at all. That said, all of those are actually pretty easy. Movement on an orbital scale is basically free, as is surface-to-orbit work. Instead of bringing the ship to a space station, bring the space station to the ship. There's no weather to worry about (unlike on Earth), so a lot of what drives modern shore facilities doesn't apply.
What difference does the maintanence facility possibly make when the ship is not attached to it? By the aguement that it is all done by shuttle the ship should be maintainable anywhere in the star system the maintenance facility is located in. Since I can send things over in shuttles anywhere in the star system. There is no need what so ever to be in orbit around the planet except for shore leave of the crew if you want to use the shuttle stuff up argument.
This is like saying that you couldn't possibly walk to your mailbox because it's absurd to try to walk to the other side of whatever continent you're on.
Why do people have a problem that the ship has to be docked anyway? It will not affect the game any, except that now ships orbiting half way to mars aren't maintained by the planet.
I think you're confusing different meanings of the word 'orbit' here. And confusing space and sea.
Look at any military harbor and you see piers, and a huge base. Why do they need those things when you can just park the ship off the coast and send out techs by helicopter and dingy? Maintenance facilities in aurora are just the same sort of thing.
They don't have to be. Suggesting that the naval solution will apply directly to space is almost always wrong.
Perhaps a compromise is needed, leave maintenance facilities at their current 200 tons maximum size per facility but then also add a maximum total tonnage multiplier. Perhaps starting at total capacity of 5 times maximum size.
I'd be OK with that, although I'd suggest that the current maximum size be increased some.
If you go this way with Steve's proposal you need a mechanism to mothball ships. In the '60s and 70s when the RN had more ships than it could afford or man they would be moored in Fareham Creek and Chatham Dockyard with external machinery plastic wrapped and the ship dehumidified and sealed. (to be fair there were two grades of mothballing, one where the ship was likely to see renewed service and one where it was really a source of spares for sister ships.) It should cost ~10% maintenance supplies to mothball a ship and ~25% and x days/weeks to de-mothball a ship.
The problem there is that this tends to lead to giant mothball fleets which then get brought out in wartime. IRL, you have other issues, like providing crew. I've suggested a model which takes this into account in the past, with crew flowing out of the pool as well as in.
If this is not done you will just build space stations with the required hanger space to dock all your warships and incur no maintenance cost. Thus you only require sufficient maintenance facilities to maintain your space stations (which may or may not be less than required for your navy, I haven't worked it out).
Just use PDCs. They require no maintenance at all. But the payoff is 5-10 years, typically, getting shorter as your ships get more expensive for a given size. I did the math on this a few months back.
If any of you have read books such as those written by Neil McCart on the service history of past RN vessels
That sounds really interesting. Do you have titles?
Remember that HMS Invincible changed an engine in the South Atlantic during the Falklands campaign while still underway.
Really? I was not aware of this. I do seem to recall D.K. Brown mentioning that they could change engines quite easily (maybe even at sea) but not that they had done so. But even so, gas turbines are a lot easier to change than most other engines. You couldn't do that with steam.
Sorry Paul this is incorrect. When the Singapore base was operational, often when ships were in for maintenance the crew were billeted in HMS Terror, a shore establishment. If in Portsmouth then the crew would often be billeted in accommodation ships (decrepit warships) or shore facilities (HM Naval Barracks). Simply because if you are performing changes to a ship during a major overhaul (or even some minor ones) the living conditions ashore were much better than on-board, there may be no electric power aboard if generators are being repaired/replaced and there may be nowhere to accommodate crew on-board if accommodation is being upgraded short of a full refit.
I think he was comparing 'in orbit' with 'in orbit docked to a space station'.
A little off topic when a ship is scrapped could ALL components be recycled. In addition when a ship is refitted could the removed components be added to the planetary stockpile? The reason is simple. I refit my first line ships to the most modern spec. I can then use the removed components from these ships to refit my second (or third) line ships to extend their useful life.
I usually SM the removed components back into the stockpile during refit. I'd like to get the minerals back during scrapping, although things like living quarters seem like they'd be built into the ship and not very modular.
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Suggesting that the naval solution will apply directly to space is almost always wrong.I'd be OK with that, although I'd suggest that the current maximum size be increased some.
I agree, but its somewhere to start. Its one reason I tend to have only frigates carriers and cruisers in the early to mid game and try and call a ship type by its function.
The problem there is that this tends to lead to giant mothball fleets which then get brought out in wartime. IRL, you have other issues, like providing crew. I've suggested a model which takes this into account in the past, with crew flowing out of the pool as well as in.
Yes, you may have a giant fleet but its probably using old tech, think how fast your sensor range changes especially early game. The USN still maintain a fleet reserve and I was surprised how big relatively the RN reserve was in the 1960s. I guess a partial solution would be to increase the cost of reactivating the ship so that after 15 years or so its a lot cheaper to build a new one, but quicker to reactivate an old one. For example HMS Bulwark was being considered for reactivation during the Falklands conflict and work may have actually started, it would have been very expensive, but many years quicker than building a new carrier. (Can you tell the Bulwark book by K.V. Burns and Mike Critchley is one I haven't got!) Limiting the crew is certainly one way of countering this. Rescuing your life pods would suddenly be very good practice! However look at the size of the WW1 and 2 RN which was the upper limit for a population which reached approximately 48 million in 1940-45, when they were decommissioning the old battleships to free up crew for escorts, one reason the Royal Sovereign was lent to the USSR. But it was still an awful lot of ships!
Just use PDCs. They require no maintenance at all. But the payoff is 5-10 years, typically, getting shorter as your ships get more expensive for a given size. I did the math on this a few months back.
Yes I think though it would become much more prevalent.
That sounds really interesting. Do you have titles?
Really? I was not aware of this. I do seem to recall D.K. Brown mentioning that they could change engines quite easily (maybe even at sea) but not that they had done so. But even so, gas turbines are a lot easier to change than most other engines. You couldn't do that with steam.
For titles look at https://www.navybooks.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=Neil+McCart. There are other authors, I am currently reading the one on the Loch class frigates. If you look on Amazon you will find many more titles but some are very expensive, try ebay you get bargains sometimes.
No, you couldn't do that with steam. Edit: From Harrier Carriers Vol 1. HMS Invincible by Neil McCart. 80 miles SW Lands End Engine room staff began to change starboard main gear box. Completed 15th April.
18th June Engine room staff began to replace a Gas Turbine main engine (3 tons) at sea. Appears completed by 25th June. Self maintenance period 25th June to ? self maintenance period (still at sea) assisted by repair ship Stena Inspector and Cable ship Iris (this appears to be an assisted self maintenance). Back on station 1st July.
I usually SM the removed components back into the stockpile during refit. I'd like to get the minerals back during scrapping, although things like living quarters seem like they'd be built into the ship and not very modular.
Yes, that's what I did in my last game with components such as weapons, sensors, shields and engines etc, but not crew spaces, bridge and engineering etc. It was a hassle though to work out the minerals that should have been returned from the refitted ships when systems were replaced. Currently they just disappear into thin air (and I really needed the uridium and galicite).
Just to throw some more ideas around perhaps the planetary maintenance system could be overhauled completely. Just for example:
A warship with sufficient maintenance supplies could perform self maintenance in orbit of any planet but for only a 6 to 12 month reduction of the maintenance clock. This would allow extended frontier patrols, but probably require additional maintenance supplies and probably a minimum number of crew.
Fleet Anchorage (orbiting structure? Think Addu Atoll) reduce maintenance clock increase by 50%, but needs little or no population. Could handle large number of warships, 250,000 tons?
Naval Base (orbiting structure + ground facilities? 2 million tons, Think Scapa Flow) would stop maintenance clock for 250,000 tons of warships (expandable to Naval Dockyard) have 2-3 slips for the refit/repair (not construction) of warships, could be pre-fabbed as PDCs, but not moved once emplaced. Requires dedicated population of 1 million. Would have to appear in Shipyards tab to refit ships.
Naval Dockyard (orbiting structure + ground facilities? 5 million tons. Large expensive facilities) would stop maintenance clock for 500,000 tons of warships (expandable?) have 5 slips for the refit/repair (not construction) of warships, could be pre-fabbed as PDCs, but not moved once emplaced (think Singapore, Devonport or Portsmouth). Requires dedicated population of 3 million. Would have to appear in Shipyards tab.
You would be able to build multiple facilities at a single planet. You could also have the last two produce maintenance supplies if you want.
To put this in some sort of context the UK had the following Naval bases/Dockyards in WW2: HMNB Devonport, HMNB Portsmouth, HMNB Clyde, (Faslane), HMNB Rosyth, HMNB Chatham, Woolwich Dockyard, Deptford Dockyard, Queenstown, Portland Dockyard, Scapa Flow, Pembroke Dockyard, Sheerness Dockyard, Simon's Town Dockyard, Malta H.M. Dockyard, Trincomalee Dockyard. This is not an exhaustive list and of course ignores all the many supporting facilities such as air bases and ordnance depots etc as well as Dominion bases.
Ian
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I like the idea of combining dockyards with maintenance. In the end those facilities are used for both functions - so maybe removing maintenance facilities at all and integrate their function into the dockyards and you decide weather you want to use your capacities for production or maintenance might be a way to go? So a ship is only maintained if it is assigned to a dockyard... .
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I agree, but its somewhere to start. Its one reason I tend to have only frigates carriers and cruisers in the early to mid game and try and call a ship type by its function.
Oh, I'm not saying that we should launch a purge of all naval models. But saying 'this is how it works at sea' is insufficient as an explanation.
Yes, you may have a giant fleet but its probably using old tech, think how fast your sensor range changes especially early game.
As a bit of explanation, the giant reserve fleet is a big thing in Starfire. AIUI (and I haven't played Starfire, but it drives a fair bit of Aurora) it tends to be basically a way of keeping a giant fleet, which gets activated when you go to war, and otherwise doesn't cost very much. This is rather distinct from what happens IRL. If we can find a good way to model IRL, then we could probably get him to put it back in.
I guess a partial solution would be to increase the cost of reactivating the ship so that after 15 years or so its a lot cheaper to build a new one, but quicker to reactivate an old one. For example HMS Bulwark was being considered for reactivation during the Falklands conflict and work may have actually started, it would have been very expensive, but many years quicker than building a new carrier.
I can't see it being more expensive and quicker to do a simple reactivation than a new-build of a similar type. To a large extent, there's a limit on how quickly you can spend money working on ships, set by the size of your shipyards. The killer is running costs and doing major refits during the reactivation. The only case I'm aware of of a ship coming out of long-term storage quickly is the New Jersey being recalled for gunfire duty off Vietnam, which was as austere as possible (a few electronic improvements) and she was recommissioned about 8 months after the decision was made. It was another 6 months before she was in action.
Limiting the crew is certainly one way of countering this. Rescuing your life pods would suddenly be very good practice! However look at the size of the WW1 and 2 RN which was the upper limit for a population which reached approximately 48 million in 1940-45, when they were decommissioning the old battleships to free up crew for escorts, one reason the Royal Sovereign was lent to the USSR. But it was still an awful lot of ships!
It's not so much manpower as a proportion of population as it is the fact that at the moment, manpower never leaves the pool except by death in action. Here's my proposal (copied out of another thread.)
First, the crew pool tracks people and points separately. The academy has a level that it pumps people in at. For example, it may add 100 people and 20000 points in a given week. These are added to the pool values. When a ship is commissioned, it takes the correct number of people and points, based on the pool averages. Adjusting the academy training level only affects the inflow, not what's already in the pool. Also, people should leave the pool. Maybe 5% a year, of average points. In wartime, you can check a box which temporarily slows the loss rate, but eventually (5 to 10 years later) it comes back to normal, or even goes higher. After you uncheck it, the war timer counts backwards until it reaches 0, so people don't just toggle it on and off when they get to the point of diminishing returns.
Second, rotate people on ships. To make it easy, whenever a ship gets shore leave, a certain number of people rotate back into the pool, based on how long it's been out. Maybe 10% per year. They're replaced with normal people from the pool. This is to avoid the "ICBM station with an enormous crew rating" problem.
Third, allow picked crews, and unpicked crews. These have maybe 150% and 50% of normal points, respectively, taking the appropriate number of people and points from the pool, and getting those values when the crew rotates. This is to allow you to have a good crew on your fancy new battleship, and give your second-line PDCs the dregs.
Fourth, conscript-crewed ships should not feed into the pool. Because of the nature of the crews (and to avoid flooding the pool with untrained people), the people who leave the ship at the end of their tour are just lost.
If you add in pay for crews in the pool, then maintaining a huge pool of crew for your mothballed ships becomes quite difficult, and the ships coming out of the pool in wartime will be well behind the active ships. That could make a big difference in terms of using it to cheat.
Yes I think though it would become much more prevalent.
It works now, but not many people seem to use it.
For titles look at https://www.navybooks.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=Neil+McCart. There are other authors, I am currently reading the one on the Loch class frigates. If you look on Amazon you will find many more titles but some are very expensive, try ebay you get bargains sometimes.
Oh, I thought you were talking about yard craft. I may see if the library has any of those.
Yes, that's what I did in my last game with components such as weapons, sensors, shields and engines etc, but not crew spaces, bridge and engineering etc. It was a hassle though to work out the minerals that should have been returned from the refitted ships when systems were replaced. Currently they just disappear into thin air (and I really needed the uridium and galicite).
I agree that mineral return would be very nice.
A warship with sufficient maintenance supplies could perform self maintenance in orbit of any planet but for only a 6 to 12 month reduction of the maintenance clock. This would allow extended frontier patrols, but probably require additional maintenance supplies and probably a minimum number of crew.
Not sure that this is realistic for high-tech ships.
You would be able to build multiple facilities at a single planet. You could also have the last two produce maintenance supplies if you want.
Interesting theory (the rest of this snipped for length), but I'm not sure it's warranted. The current system works pretty well, particularly with the addition of Civilian hangars and the changes being discussed here. That said, a refit/repair shipyard could be quite handy.
I like the idea of combining dockyards with maintenance. In the end those facilities are used for both functions - so maybe removing maintenance facilities at all and integrate their function into the dockyards and you decide weather you want to use your capacities for production or maintenance might be a way to go? So a ship is only maintained if it is assigned to a dockyard... .
Bad idea for several reasons. First, it won't play well. You won't be able to do forward bases at all, and a lot of shipyards (which are not cheap) will be stuck serving as maintenance facilities. Second, it's not realistic. Ulithi never had the facilities to build ships, and they certainly did maintenance.
A better option might be to speed up overhaul times, and require that they be done in shipyards. Maybe add refit/repair/overhaul only yards, too.
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I like the idea of combining dockyards with maintenance. In the end those facilities are used for both functions - so maybe removing maintenance facilities at all and integrate their function into the dockyards and you decide weather you want to use your capacities for production or maintenance might be a way to go? So a ship is only maintained if it is assigned to a dockyard... .
The problem is that micromanagement becomes a bit severe, mainly because shipyard slipways and modifications are so darned expensive. Insofar as management, I figure that construction slipways -should not- be tied up for maintenance when they're supposed to be building, repairing, and scrapping ships (over a span of several years no less).
And what would that mean for the new "Deep Space Maintenance Facilities" feature that Steve just recently programmed in, as well? We can't just do away with maintenance facilities; we just got a new feature which has an allotrope of them: the maintenance module.
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As a bit of explanation, the giant reserve fleet is a big thing in Starfire. AIUI (and I haven't played Starfire, but it drives a fair bit of Aurora) it tends to be basically a way of keeping a giant fleet, which gets activated when you go to war, and otherwise doesn't cost very much. This is rather distinct from what happens IRL. If we can find a good way to model IRL, then we could probably get him to put it back in.
I have played 3rd Starfire, although after about 100 turns with 5-6 players it was impossible to keep it going in a 1000 star galaxy. I also tried 4th but it was flavourless. In 3rd a reserve fleet did not feature even when we increased costs x10. We were too busy massing fleets to deter invasions or to invade.
I can't see it being more expensive and quicker to do a simple reactivation than a new-build of a similar type. To a large extent, there's a limit on how quickly you can spend money working on ships, set by the size of your shipyards. The killer is running costs and doing major refits during the reactivation. The only case I'm aware of a ship coming out of long-term storage quickly is the New Jersey being recalled for gunfire duty off Vietnam, which was as austere as possible (a few electronic improvements) and she was recommissioned about 8 months after the decision was made. It was another 6 months before she was in action.
I have found in Aurora early to mid game it takes years to build a ship without pre-made components and about 18 months to pre-build your components and then a month or two to build your ship. Here I am thinking of ships of around 15,000 tons. If you had a reserve fleet you could de-mothball your ship which may or may not take yard capacity (that's up to Steve). If you wanted to upgrade it then you would have to refit it. Time dependent on whether you had a component stockpile. Examples: Loch Achanalt decommissioned into reserve on 5th June 1945. On the 19th May 1948 she was taken in hand for restorative work on engines and machinery. On the 6th August she was handed over to the New Zealand Navy. HMS Hampshire paid off into reserve in June 1969. She was taken in hand on 3rd August 1973 and recommissioned on 3rd September 1973. The first instance was because of a glut of ships after the wartime build up, the second due to costs and manpower shortage. There are more around if you want to look.
Lets face it you would probably only activate your reserves if you were under pressure. You would not have time to train your crew so they would be green conscript crews in obsolete ships and suffer accordingly when they were in combat. It's not so much manpower as a proportion of population as it is the fact that at the moment, manpower never leaves the pool except by death in action. Here's my proposal (copied out of another thread.)If you add in pay for crews in the pool, then maintaining a huge pool of crew for your mothballed ships becomes quite difficult, and the ships coming out of the pool in wartime will be well behind the active ships. That could make a big difference in terms of using it to cheat.
In wartime you conscript who you need to, if you are lucky you have a core of regulars and reserve personnel to build your new crews around. But as was found in WW2 operational efficiency suffers unless time is taken to train and work a ship up, that was what HMS Western Isles at Tobermory was for. Read any book covering life in the Atlantic escorts. The RN expanded from 276,000 personnel in 1940 to 873,000 in 1945. These extra crew just did not exist in 1940. they had to be recruited and trained, however basic. To be sure a high tech spacecraft will require a higher educational attainment than a surface warship, but the educational attainment now is greater than 1940 (I hope :D) the crew requirement should also be much smaller taking advantage of automation. The type 45 Destroyers have a complement of 191, the previous type 42 a complement of 286.
Even in Starfire green ships suffer (see Paul M's Theban Empire).
Not sure that this is realistic for high-tech ships.
I disagree, before the Invincible class you had to cut through several decks including the flight deck to change major propulsion machinery on a carrier and you could not do it under way. I cannot believe that we would ignore the lessons learnt and go back to the old ways.
Interesting theory (the rest of this snipped for length), but I'm not sure it's warranted. The current system works pretty well, particularly with the addition of Civilian hangars and the changes being discussed here. That said, a refit/repair shipyard could be quite handy.
As I said its just an alternative idea. However I like the idea of a naval base/dockyard. :D
Sorry this is all based on the wet navy but its all I have to go on. ;D
The problem is that micromanagement becomes a bit severe, mainly because shipyard slipways and modifications are so darned expensive. Insofar as management, I figure that construction slipways -should not- be tied up for maintenance when they're supposed to be building, repairing, and scrapping ships (over a span of several years no less).
And what would that mean for the new "Deep Space Maintenance Facilities" feature that Steve just recently programmed in, as well? We can't just do away with maintenance facilities; we just got a new feature which has an allotrope of them: the maintenance module.
As far as I am concerned you can have both. they need not be mutually exclusive, you can call them anything you want. These are just ideas to see if there is anything better out there. But I do like the idea of a naval base/dockyard, how its possibly implemented is up to Steve. Maintenance facilities may represent small ports, call them anything you want as long as there is internal consistency.
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I have found in Aurora early to mid game it takes years to build a ship without pre-made components and about 18 months to pre-build your components and then a month or two to build your ship. Here I am thinking of ships of around 15,000 tons. If you had a reserve fleet you could de-mothball your ship which may or may not take yard capacity (that's up to Steve). If you wanted to upgrade it then you would have to refit it.
Fair enough, but I'm not sure how this is a response to my point. Reactivating from reserve without refits will almost always be cheaper than new-build.
Time dependent on whether you had a component stockpile. Examples: Loch Achanalt decommissioned into reserve on 5th June 1945. On the 19th May 1948 she was taken in hand for restorative work on engines and machinery. On the 6th August she was handed over to the New Zealand Navy.
She was less than 1,500 tons. Of course her refit was fast, and she's been in storage for only 3 years.
HMS Hampshire paid off into reserve in June 1969. She was taken in hand on 3rd August 1973 and recommissioned on 3rd September 1973. The first instance was because of a glut of ships after the wartime build up, the second due to costs and manpower shortage. There are more around if you want to look.
Wiki has her listed as 'under refit' 70-73, which makes a lot more sense.
Lets face it you would probably only activate your reserves if you were under pressure. You would not have time to train your crew so they would be green conscript crews in obsolete ships and suffer accordingly when they were in combat.
Replicating that was the core of my suggestion for the altered crew pool.
The RN expanded from 276,000 personnel in 1940 to 873,000 in 1945. These extra crew just did not exist in 1940. they had to be recruited and trained, however basic.
I actually have a book on that, although I haven't managed to get around to reading it yet.
I disagree, before the Invincible class you had to cut through several decks including the flight deck to change major propulsion machinery on a carrier and you could not do it under way. I cannot believe that we would ignore the lessons learnt and go back to the old ways.
The Invincibles were unusual in being able to do that, IIRC. Brown specifically references being able to take the turbines out through the trunking, although I'm not sure that you could do it underway. If so, I'd suggest that it had to do with the relative novelty of gas turbines at the time the Invincibles were designed. I'm reasonably sure that you can't do it on a Burke, probably because there was no need to ensure you could. And there's lots of other work which can't really be done underway. For instance, replenishing VLS.
Sorry this is all based on the wet navy but its all I have to go on. ;D
It's not just wet navy, it's all RN. There are other navies in existence, you know. ;)
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I tend to keep old obsolete vessels around for a while, at least as many as I can afford.
It would be nice if I could reduce its maintenence requirement without needing to shove it into a hanger, more importantly I would love to be able to take the entire trained crew out of my old warship and put them into a brand new class, while I understand that the new crew needs to learn all the new systems that are different, there should be some advantage to recycling old seasoned officers rather than just getting them back as standard green crew of the appropriate raining level.
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Fair enough, but I'm not sure how this is a response to my point. Reactivating from reserve without refits will almost always be cheaper than new-build.
Its because you add the cost of the refit of a 10 year old ship to the cost of reactivation or use an obsolete ship which will probably get chewed up fast. Refits in Aurora are expensive, especially when you change the engines. It may not be quite as expensive as a brand new ship, but won't be far short and probably not as good, but good enough (hopefully) for a jump point defence. I suggested mothballing as the proposed changes may impact the number of ships you can keep fully maintained and in service during a protracted peace.
She was less than 1,500 tons. Of course her refit was fast, and she's been in storage for only 3 years.
Wiki has her listed as 'under refit' 70-73, which makes a lot more sense.
My information on Hampshire is taken from "County Class Guided Missile Destroyers" by Neil McCart. He states categorically she was in reserve. The batch 1 Counties were not refitted to any great extent, didn't even get Seaslug Mk II.
The Invincibles were unusual in being able to do that, IIRC. Brown specifically references being able to take the turbines out through the trunking, although I'm not sure that you could do it underway. If so, I'd suggest that it had to do with the relative novelty of gas turbines at the time the Invincibles were designed. I'm reasonably sure that you can't do it on a Burke, probably because there was no need to ensure you could. And there's lots of other work which can't really be done underway. For instance, replenishing VLS.
I would not have said gas turbines were new when put into the Invincibles, HMS Exmouth was refitted in 1966 with COGOG. The exhaust and intake trunking was also utilised to allow the removal of complete engines, giving a rapid 24-hour exchange time. Of course there will always be something you cannot do underway, and I don't have much of an idea about VLS, although I am surprised that you cannot replenish those while underway. It kind of limits your deployment in an active war zone.
It's not just wet navy, it's all RN. There are other navies in existence, you know. ;)
Yes, but 99% of my reference sources are RN. The rest are mostly Janes or WW2! ;D
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I tend to keep old obsolete vessels around for a while, at least as many as I can afford.
It would be nice if I could reduce its maintenence requirement without needing to shove it into a hanger, more importantly I would love to be able to take the entire trained crew out of my old warship and put them into a brand new class, while I understand that the new crew needs to learn all the new systems that are different, there should be some advantage to recycling old seasoned officers rather than just getting them back as standard green crew of the appropriate raining level.
That was the intent of my crew pool rotation system, particularly the 'picked crew' option. It's not a perfect match, but it does pretty much kill the 'my obsolete PDCs have really high crew bonuses, and my new battleship is crewed by greenhorns' problem.
Its because you add the cost of the refit of a 10 year old ship to the cost of reactivation or use an obsolete ship which will probably get chewed up fast. Refits in Aurora are expensive, especially when you change the engines. It may not be quite as expensive as a brand new ship, but won't be far short and probably not as good, but good enough (hopefully) for a jump point defence. I suggested mothballing as the proposed changes may impact the number of ships you can keep fully maintained and in service during a protracted peace.
Note that I'm specifically talking about reactivation without doing refits. I can't see bringing Bulwark up to full service standards in the Falklands. Clean up the fire damage and make her seaworthy, but change as little as possible.
My information on Hampshire is taken from "County Class Guided Missile Destroyers" by Neil McCart. He states categorically she was in reserve. The batch 1 Counties were not refitted to any great extent, didn't even get Seaslug Mk II.
Interesting. I'm not an expert on the subject, but I'm pretty sure you can't take a big ship that's been in mothballs for four years and put her back in service in a month. There's a lot of work involved in bringing a ship out of reserve.
I would not have said gas turbines were new when put into the Invincibles, HMS Exmouth was refitted in 1966 with COGOG. The exhaust and intake trunking was also utilised to allow the removal of complete engines, giving a rapid 24-hour exchange time.
It's possible that taking the turbines out through the trunking is a standard feature. In any case, I'm reasonably certain that nobody does it while underway. Gas turbines are easy to change, but the reduction gears aren't. (That's what killed the Spruances, actually.)
Of course there will always be something you cannot do underway, and I don't have much of an idea about VLS, although I am surprised that you cannot replenish those while underway. It kind of limits your deployment in an active war zone.
Well, when you think about the mechanics of VLS, it's obvious why they don't UNREP them. Dealing with getting missiles down the holes from above in any kind of seaway would be a nightmare. The extra cells you get from eliminating the VLS loading crane are more than worth it.
Yes, but 99% of my reference sources are RN. The rest are mostly Janes or WW2! ;D
Try Friedman's books if you can find copies.
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That was the intent of my crew pool rotation system, particularly the 'picked crew' option. It's not a perfect match, but it does pretty much kill the 'my obsolete PDCs have really high crew bonuses, and my new battleship is crewed by greenhorns' problem.
Perhaps every time a ship undergoes an overhaul it should be treated as a new commission and task force bonus reduced by 50%.
Note that I'm specifically talking about reactivation without doing refits. I can't see bringing Bulwark up to full service standards in the Falklands. Clean up the fire damage and make her seaworthy, but change as little as possible.
"During the early stages of the Falklands War it was announced that Bulwark would be reactivated and sent south to support the fleet, and then remain as a headquarters hulk at Port Stanley following the war. A rapid ship survey, however, determined that in addition to the unrepaired fire damage suffered in 1980, she had deteriorated too much for this to be practicable." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Bulwark_(R08))
Interesting. I'm not an expert on the subject, but I'm pretty sure you can't take a big ship that's been in mothballs for four years and put her back in service in a month. There's a lot of work involved in bringing a ship out of reserve.
I guess it depends on whether its maintained or unmaintained reserve. A few more examples: HMS Dainty went into reserve 21st April 1953, virtually straight from the builders. on 27th January she was used in operation sleeping beauty which aimed to bring Dainty forward from dehumidification and remove all plastic shrouds, including those underwater in 28 days. Actually started sea trial 29th February, 32 days later. Finally taken out of reserve to refit in August 1956, recommissioned 4th December 1956. ("Daring Class Destroyers" by Neil McCart). HMS Fearless and HMS Intrepid were in commission alternately each commission lasting 2-3 years. In reserve they were shrouded and dehumidified but kept at 30 days notice for steam. The crew was reduced from 650 to 50 ("HMS Fearless & HMS Intrepid 1965-2002" by Neil McCart). All C class destroyers spent a number of years in reserve, PVC sprayed over external and underwater fittings and dehumidified inside. Maintenance parties routinely ran boilers and turned engines. ("C Class Destroyers" by David Hobbs). So to reflect this reduce maintenance to 10-15% per accounting period for maintained maintenance and be able to reactivate in 30 days and then unmaintained reserve which costs 10% to put in reserve, nothing to keep it in reserve but 250% and 10 months to reactivate or number of systems fail and require to be repaired.
It's possible that taking the turbines out through the trunking is a standard feature. In any case, I'm reasonably certain that nobody does it while underway. Gas turbines are easy to change, but the reduction gears aren't. (That's what killed the Spruances, actually.)
But the Invincible did change a gearbox underway (see earlier post). However you need at least two shafts. I suspect it was cost not ability to change reduction gears that killed the Spruances. There are cases were they cut holes in the hull to replace machinery, but not cheap.
Well, when you think about the mechanics of VLS, it's obvious why they don't UNREP them. Dealing with getting missiles down the holes from above in any kind of seaway would be a nightmare. The extra cells you get from eliminating the VLS loading crane are more than worth it.
From a quick wiz round the internet it appears that the removal of the crane did not give any more cells. (https://www.dsiac.org/resources/dsiac_journal/fall-2014-volume-1-number-2/promising-future-us-navy-vertical-launching). It appears it is possible to replenish VLS cells but the USN doesn't see the need. (http://www.defensetech.org/2010/06/10/vls-underway-replenishment-when-will-the-navy-get-serious/).
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Perhaps every time a ship undergoes an overhaul it should be treated as a new commission and task force bonus reduced by 50%.
Wouldn't this make people just turn off features pertaining to task force firing delay and whatnot? You'd think task force training would be an insane pain in the rear in that, in the time you've trained your task force to 100%, most ships would already need an overhaul. Essentially making it almost impossible to have a ship, that you actually wish use and deploy, actually respond to orders in a timely manner, when every overhaul undoes many months of training, and every few months of training pretty much undoes all that overhauling you've been doing.
I figure that if what you meant was Crew Grade Bonus, it would still be just about as bad, honestly. Less obvious penalties, but don't expect your crew grades to ever become anything spectacular if just using the ship is going to wind it back (due to overhaul being necessary).
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I haven't read all the thread yet but with regard to the idea of reserve or mothballed ships, one option could be to remove overhaul as a task and instead have different 'maintenance states' for ships (set by orders).
Assuming my suggestion for maintenance capacity is in force...
1) No Maintenance: Doesn't count against maintenance capacity and clock advances normally (even if in the same location as MF). No restriction on movement.
2) Normal Maintenance: When in the same location as MF, counts against maintenance capacity and clock doesn't advance. Normal maintenance costs. No restriction on movement.
3) Docked: When in the same location as MF, counts against maintenance capacity and clock goes backward at slow speed (perhaps 1-2x speed). Small increase in maintenance costs. A time penalty before movement - perhaps a few hours.
4) Dry Dock. Effectively same as overhaul. When in the same location as MF, counts against maintenance capacity and clock goes backward at fast speed. Maintenance costs as per current overhaul. Time penalty of perhaps 1-2 weeks before movement.
5) Reserve. Requires maintenance facilities but as if the ship was much smaller, perhaps 25% size. Clock does not advance. Maintenance costs 1/4 normal. Time penalty of 2 months before movement.
6) Mothballed. Requires maintenance facilities but as if the ship was much smaller, perhaps 10% size. Clock does not advance. Maintenance costs 1/10th normal. Time penalty of maybe 6 months before movement.
A task group containing ships with status of anything but 1 + 2 would not be able to move unless those ships were detached. These are just rough estimates to give a flavour of the idea, rather than set in stone. Interested in comments on the principle.
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@ iceball3: Or, if we keep it on, disposable ships.
Several years of maintenance life, never overhaul (with time in orbit/hangars not counting, the expected ship life is going to be several times that).
With this kind of change, we really should ask ourselves "what would this encourage?", and if the answer is "play around the entire system" the change is a little suspect. Note: it's fine if "playing around the system" is possible, but doing things as intended should be a credible option that's not blatantly suboptimal.
@ Steve Walmsley: Sounds good in principle, but probably requires a change to (military) hangars to be worthwhile if you want to limit maintenance facilities in the total capacity they can serve.
Currently, mothballing means shoving it into a hangar, which allows you to forget about the ship until you have need for it with no drawbacks.
And trying to nerf hangars for the purpose of mothballing would probably restrict many cool and legitimate ways of fielding a carrier-based navy...
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@ Steve Walmsley: Sounds good in principle, but probably requires a change to (military) hangars to be worthwhile if you want to limit maintenance facilities in the total capacity they can serve.
Currently, mothballing means shoving it into a hangar, which allows you to forget about the ship until you have need for it with no drawbacks.
And trying to nerf hangars for the purpose of mothballing would probably restrict many cool and legitimate ways of fielding a carrier-based navy...
Why not just turn on maintenance costs for ships in hangars? With the move to MSP that will be much simpler to manage, and will nerf mothball hangars without affecting carrier fleets.
If ships in hangars exploding from maintenance failures were treated as internal explosions in the mothership, that could also lead to some very interesting and difficult decisions on long deployments- "Captain, we're running very low on MSP. I project a 3% chance each month that one of the fighter will explode and take us down as well. Shall we mothball the fighters?"
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I'm thinking this is a good idea taken to far. I would suggest simplifying the list down to just Maintenance: None/Docked/Reserve.
1) None - As stated.
2) Docked - Required for shore leave. Normal maintenance/slow rewind as suggested if MF present. The small delay is the time required to recall the crew.
3) Reserve - As stated.
'Dry Dock' could become whatever ends up happening with hanger repair, and 'Mothballed' could be handwaved away as scrapping a ship for components and then rebuilding from components if/when necessary.
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Wouldn't this make people just turn off features pertaining to task force firing delay and whatnot? You'd think task force training would be an insane pain in the rear in that, in the time you've trained your task force to 100%, most ships would already need an overhaul. Essentially making it almost impossible to have a ship, that you actually wish use and deploy, actually respond to orders in a timely manner, when every overhaul undoes many months of training, and every few months of training pretty much undoes all that overhauling you've been doing.
I figure that if what you meant was Crew Grade Bonus, it would still be just about as bad, honestly. Less obvious penalties, but don't expect your crew grades to ever become anything spectacular if just using the ship is going to wind it back (due to overhaul being necessary).
I actually meant Task Force bonus. I think this must reflect crew training. The trouble is that Aurora appears to treat crews like they were in the late 18th to early 19th century, never allowed ashore in case they desert. A solution would be for a ship to work up to 75% to be very much quicker say ~3 months and the rest gained over the next 6-9 months while in service. While a commission would be from 3 to 5 years. Then when the ship ends one commission the task force bonus is reset to a lower level (25%?) perhaps depending on quality of available crew. However, this requires you to track number of available crew and the quality and quantity available. When a wet navy warship recommissions (often, but not always after a refit) there is a reason she undergoes a work up to operational efficiency over several weeks, this does not necessarily mean it is at peak efficiency. In Aurora my experience is it takes a year or more to get 100% task force bonus, which seems far too long.
There could be a way to set a ships commission length as you would set your officers tour length or have it equal the officers tour length. But the ship would have to be at a naval base to recommission. However, there may not be a way to fix this.
Assuming my suggestion for maintenance capacity is in force...
1) No Maintenance: Doesn't count against maintenance capacity and clock advances normally (even if in the same location as MF). No restriction on movement.
2) Normal Maintenance: When in the same location as MF, counts against maintenance capacity and clock doesn't advance. Normal maintenance costs. No restriction on movement.
3) Docked: When in the same location as MF, counts against maintenance capacity and clock goes backward at slow speed (perhaps 1-2x speed). Small increase in maintenance costs. A time penalty before movement - perhaps a few hours.
4) Dry Dock. Effectively same as overhaul. When in the same location as MF, counts against maintenance capacity and clock goes backward at fast speed. Maintenance costs as per current overhaul. Time penalty of perhaps 1-2 weeks before movement.
5) Reserve. Requires maintenance facilities but as if the ship was much smaller, perhaps 25% size. Clock does not advance. Maintenance costs 1/4 normal. Time penalty of 2 months before movement.
6) Mothballed. Requires maintenance facilities but as if the ship was much smaller, perhaps 10% size. Clock does not advance. Maintenance costs 1/10th normal. Time penalty of maybe 6 months before movement.
A task group containing ships with status of anything but 1 + 2 would not be able to move unless those ships were detached. These are just rough estimates to give a flavour of the idea, rather than set in stone. Interested in comments on the principle.
I quite like this but would rename (3) to be Assisted Maintenance, this could also be provided by maintenance/depot ships to which you wouldn't necessarily need to be docked to.
(4) Then becomes Docked unless you are suggesting that you pressurise the dock for some advantage. But otherwise I like this.
(5) and (6) I guess only time would tell whether players would use both or prefer one over the other. It covers the realistic options.
Overall I like these options. But I still want a naval base! ;D
Ian
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Perhaps every time a ship undergoes an overhaul it should be treated as a new commission and task force bonus reduced by 50%.
The idosyncratic British version of 'commission' is not shared by the USN. I can't speak for other navies. I would be in favor of making TF bonus easier to get, and having it decay if the ship sits in port too long.
"During the early stages of the Falklands War it was announced that Bulwark would be reactivated and sent south to support the fleet, and then remain as a headquarters hulk at Port Stanley following the war. A rapid ship survey, however, determined that in addition to the unrepaired fire damage suffered in 1980, she had deteriorated too much for this to be practicable." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Bulwark_(R08))
Yes. That doesn't mean they were going to bring her up to full service standards. She was destined to be a hulk, not a carrier, after the war.
I guess it depends on whether its maintained or unmaintained reserve.
(Following snipped for length). It appears that British practice here is somewhat different from USN practice, at least as executed. To provide some context, I'm a tour guide on the USS Iowa, so all of my serious study of things like mothballing comes from her and her sisters. AFAIK, they were kept significantly less ready than the examples you give, even though they were the first line of the reserve fleet. Then again, we didn't have the RN's ruinous fiscal and manpower problems, so there wasn't much reason to keep ships on such a quick reserve.
But the Invincible did change a gearbox underway (see earlier post). However you need at least two shafts. I suspect it was cost not ability to change reduction gears that killed the Spruances. There are cases were they cut holes in the hull to replace machinery, but not cheap.
You have yet to convince me that Invincible can/did change a turbine underway, let alone the gearing. Are gas turbines much, much easier to change than steam turbines/boilers? Yes. But other things aren't. Gearing is a prominent example (reduction gears are big, heavy, and expensive. Iowa's inspection covers are locked because a popular way to avoid going to sea involved throwing something into them) but there are lots and lots of others.
From a quick wiz round the internet it appears that the removal of the crane did not give any more cells. (https://www.dsiac.org/resources/dsiac_journal/fall-2014-volume-1-number-2/promising-future-us-navy-vertical-launching).
Not exactly. The Ticos aren't getting more cells installed after the crane is removed, but the Flight II and later Burkes were built without the cranes and did get the extra cells.
I haven't read all the thread yet but with regard to the idea of reserve or mothballed ships, one option could be to remove overhaul as a task and instead have different 'maintenance states' for ships (set by orders).
Assuming my suggestion for maintenance capacity is in force...
1) No Maintenance: Doesn't count against maintenance capacity and clock advances normally (even if in the same location as MF). No restriction on movement.
2) Normal Maintenance: When in the same location as MF, counts against maintenance capacity and clock doesn't advance. Normal maintenance costs. No restriction on movement.
3) Docked: When in the same location as MF, counts against maintenance capacity and clock goes backward at slow speed (perhaps 1-2x speed). Small increase in maintenance costs. A time penalty before movement - perhaps a few hours.
4) Dry Dock. Effectively same as overhaul. When in the same location as MF, counts against maintenance capacity and clock goes backward at fast speed. Maintenance costs as per current overhaul. Time penalty of perhaps 1-2 weeks before movement.
5) Reserve. Requires maintenance facilities but as if the ship was much smaller, perhaps 25% size. Clock does not advance. Maintenance costs 1/4 normal. Time penalty of 2 months before movement.
6) Mothballed. Requires maintenance facilities but as if the ship was much smaller, perhaps 10% size. Clock does not advance. Maintenance costs 1/10th normal. Time penalty of maybe 6 months before movement.
A task group containing ships with status of anything but 1 + 2 would not be able to move unless those ships were detached. These are just rough estimates to give a flavour of the idea, rather than set in stone. Interested in comments on the principle.
Overall, I like it, although I would suggest that 2 and 3 need to be altered. The problem is that when a ship is tied up, it's normally not ready for immediate steaming. If nothing else, you have things like crew on liberty. Status 2 would be the ship being kept ready, with crew rest not happening (maybe just freeze the clock as-is) and the maintenance clock continuing to tick at a diminished rate (maybe 25%), while at 3, the maintenance clock stops and the crew can rest.
(Or just go with sublight's suggestion)
Actually, implementing this might help in other areas, too. Might the same mechanism be used to make civilian hangars take way, way longer to launch ships than do military hangars?
I'm thinking this is a good idea taken to far. I would suggest simplifying the list down to just Maintenance: None/Docked/Reserve.
1) None - As stated.
2) Docked - Required for shore leave. Normal maintenance/slow rewind as suggested if MF present. The small delay is the time required to recall the crew.
3) Reserve - As stated.
'Dry Dock' could become whatever ends up happening with hanger repair, and 'Mothballed' could be handwaved away as scrapping a ship for components and then rebuilding from components if/when necessary.
I like this. It's simpler, and accurately reflects what's going on, although you need to add a 'refit' option.
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If we were to go with the simplified version, I would prefer to keep the mothball option over the reserve option. Bigger effect on the dynamics of the game if it takes longer to bring the ships back into service and you get bigger maintenance cost savings.
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I like the mothball idea. It gives me an excuse not to scrap my whole fleet every time a new I have a new generation of starships.
If parasites will consume parent MSP though, maybe add FACs to the list of ships available in "preferred strike group" on the ship design screen along with the carrier's preferred strike group being factored into the maintenance life statistic. That way designing carriers won't be as stressful.
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I dislike the mothball statistics. I enjoy using wolfpacks of missile boats and it just feels wrong that the time required to un-mothball a FAC is potentially slower than the time needed to build a new one from scratch.
In contrast the reserve stats sound great. It is significantly faster than rebuilding from scratch, yet still slow enough to be embarrassing if surprised by an invasion. It is cheap enough to greatly assist in maintaining a peace-time fleet, but not so cheap that the bean counters can't find reason to whine.
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Maybe if it used a formula based on its BP instead of a hard statistic like "6 months"
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That seems reasonable to me. Smaller, more simplistic designs should probably be faster to de-mothball just as they are faster to construct in the first place.
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Smaller and more simplistic may not be the same thing... so, Build Points, tonnage or something that takes both into account?
I believe I had FACs more expensive than some 10000t warships active at the same time.
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Build points is better than raw tonnage.
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Yeah that seems a lot more reasonable, I think that would be better too.
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I'd go with some combination of both. Some of the work needed is just a function of how much ship there is to tear protective covers off of, while other bits are going to be set by how much electronic equipment there is to rehab. That said, the range of possible values needs to be set carefully, so you don't get FACs reactivating in 3 days or battleships that take 3 years.
Another issue that needs to be dealt with is how a ship that gets pulled out of mothballs and straight into a major refit gets treated. Do they have to be done separately, or can they be combined? If they're combined, how does the math work? Some of the refit will help demothballing, but not all of it.
Also, should pulling ships out of mothballs take shipyard slots? It wouldn't be unrealistic if that was the case.
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Build points is better than raw tonnage.
Well Build points affects the minerals needed to keep up maintenance on a ship. So this is already taken into account when constructing parts.
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I like this idea, but only if maintenance facilities are slightly cheaper both in BP and personnel, since now I imagine I'll need to build more of them. Maybe military slipways that aren't presently building anything could count towards maintenance limit in a less efficient capacity?
Overall I think this is a great idea, especially if it makes the maintenance facility component for ships more useful.
You don't need to build more since each one will be able to hold tonnage, so you would have to build less at far off bases but more at your capital. So really it all evens out.
And Steve. I would only have each facility worth 1000 tons, nothing more.
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Well Build points affects the minerals needed to keep up maintenance on a ship. So this is already taken into account when constructing parts.
I have no idea what you think I was replying to.
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I had another idea, it takes time to prepare a ship for reduced maintenence, and obviously it takes time to get it prepared for service again, also the ship does still decay somewhat despite the best efforts.
What if there was 2 methods of reducing maintenence the first puts the ship into reserve which to start takes 25% of the ships full overhaul time and costs half of that,the ship also gets overhauled in the process but also at only half the rate. If the ship has 0 years on the clock then the minimum time for this process should be 10% of the ships full maintenence life or something.
While in reserve the ships clock continues at 25% normal rate and still costs 25% normal maintenence. While in reserve ships systems can be damaged and repairs take MSP, but no explosions can occur from damage. (No fuel or ammo on board, reactor is powered down etc).
Reactivation merely overhauls the ship by 25% at normal cost, there should be a minimum 5-10% or something. This mode would allow you to keep a reserve fleet 4 times larger that's easy to use in a short time, but if the ships are sitting for a long time obviously they will take longer to reactivate and cost more too.
The second mode puts a ship into an inactive status which basically means defuelling and abandoning it, it costs no maintenence but decays at 25% normal, damaged systems don't cause explosions and in addition they aren't automatically repaired so after a long time you'll end up with a severely damaged hulk that has to be towed to a shipyard and repaired.
But since inactive ships cost no maintenence you can have a massive yard of them. Reactivation of hulks is expensive and time consuming but still faster and cheaper than building new ships.
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I had another idea, it takes time to prepare a ship for reduced maintenence, and obviously it takes time to get it prepared for service again, also the ship does still decay somewhat despite the best efforts.
What if there was 2 methods of reducing maintenence the first puts the ship into reserve which to start takes 25% of the ships full overhaul time and costs half of that,the ship also gets overhauled in the process but also at only half the rate. If the ship has 0 years on the clock then the minimum time for this process should be 10% of the ships full maintenence life or something.
While in reserve the ships clock continues at 25% normal rate and still costs 25% normal maintenence. While in reserve ships systems can be damaged and repairs take MSP, but no explosions can occur from damage. (No fuel or ammo on board, reactor is powered down etc).
Reactivation merely overhauls the ship by 25% at normal cost, there should be a minimum 5-10% or something. This mode would allow you to keep a reserve fleet 4 times larger that's easy to use in a short time, but if the ships are sitting for a long time obviously they will take longer to reactivate and cost more too.
The second mode puts a ship into an inactive status which basically means defuelling and abandoning it, it costs no maintenence but decays at 25% normal, damaged systems don't cause explosions and in addition they aren't automatically repaired so after a long time you'll end up with a severely damaged hulk that has to be towed to a shipyard and repaired.
But since inactive ships cost no maintenence you can have a massive yard of them. Reactivation of hulks is expensive and time consuming but still faster and cheaper than building new ships.
The first suggestion doesn't result in 25% of normal cost, but 50% if you take them out and overhaul, which is a bit high. (25% of normal cost in terms of supplies while in orbit and 25% from the overhaul. The current/proposed math actually means that operating ships and overhauling costs exactly the same as leaving them parked on orbit.)
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Then my maths are terrible, but in theory is it a good idea to have a reduced cost option, and a free option where the ship falls apart quickly?
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Then my maths are terrible, but in theory is it a good idea to have a reduced cost option, and a free option where the ship falls apart quickly?
Sure. With wet ships, that's not really an option, as they fall apart too fast. (I work on a museum ship. We spend a lot of effort on that.) But in space, there isn't much to cause that sort of damage.
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But in space, there isn't much to cause that sort of damage.
Micrometeorites, other debris,the ship constantly having pressure pushing outward, wear on parts, stress from other sources (gravity, magnetic, etc), and a bunch of other stuff.
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Micrometeorites, other debris,the ship constantly having pressure pushing outward, wear on parts, stress from other sources (gravity, magnetic, etc), and a bunch of other stuff.
Small impacts are not even remotely going to cause a problem. These ships have armor capable of withstanding nearby nuclear weapons. Micrometeorites aren't going to do more than scratch the paint.
Pressurization stress isn't a problem. It's a constant load, and constant loads within design tolerances are basically negligible from a lifespan point of view for anything. What kills airplanes is fatigue from cycling. Ships with 30-ft draft have similar pressure loads on their keel plates, and they don't have any issues at all from this, even when they're 70 years old.
Wear on parts won't happen because the ship is basically abandoned. There will be some degradation, but it will be relatively slow compared to what would happen if you parked a ship without maintenance.
The other sources of stress are totally negligible. Gravity and magnetic effects are of interest to the attitude control people, not to structures, unless you're doing something really wacky. (This isn't really wacky.) And I can't think of anything other than radiation which falls into the 'bunch of other stuff', and that's probably a big component to the slow rate I see happening.
Space is not a nice environment, but spacecraft are designed to deal with it passively, as opposed to ships, which generally take quite a bit of work to keep in good shape. Turning the spacecraft off is only going to reduce the amount of work needed.
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It would probably help a lot if you purged the atmosphere out of the ship, so your internal components dont slowly oxidize (and/or have stuff growing in them).
e: fixed terrible grammar
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It would probably help a lot if you purged the atmosphere out of the ship, so your components internal didn't slowly oxidize (and/or have stuff growing in them).
It depends on how you design the ship. If you designed everything do deal with extended exposure to vacuum, then that would be the best way of doing preservation. If you didn't (and doing design for vacuum is not always easy), then just fill the ship with nitrogen. Or at very least, set the humidity to 0, which helps a lot in preserving things. (That's one of the main features of naval mothballing. We still have a lot of the equipment onboard.)
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That would probably be better actually, yeah. Also if you did that, then all the maintenance people would need is a respirator to give them oxygen rather than a full space suit.
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I found an interesting article on the USN mothballing program after WWII:
Part 1 (https://wwiiafterwwii.wordpress.com/2016/03/27/mothballing-the-us-navy-after-wwii-pt-1/) and Part 2 (https://wwiiafterwwii.wordpress.com/2016/03/27/mothballing-the-us-navy-after-wwii-pt-2/).
The main point is that water is the primary killer of mothballed ships (not surprising) and that's not really a problem in space.
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The main point is that water is the primary killer of mothballed ships (not surprising) and that's not really a problem in space.
On the contrary, there is quite a lot in space that behaves like water. Take micrometeorites and other microscopic space debris for example (which I mentioned before but I will expand this time. And yes, there is quite a lot more than you would think out there). While they cant punch through tough armor they still sandblast it away given enough time, just like how water will rust away steel given enough time. While not a constant chemical process like water with steel, it is a kinetic process of exchanging energy. While tougher armor would stand up better from them, it would still slowly erode (even if just an atom at a time).
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Even the most basic shield can take a decent-sized nuke every few minutes.
I'm sure something sufficient to keep space debris away could me made in a way that's maintenance-free.
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On the contrary, there is quite a lot in space that behaves like water. Take micrometeorites and other microscopic space debris for example (which I mentioned before but I will expand this time. And yes, there is quite a lot more than you would think out there). While they cant punch through tough armor they still sandblast it away given enough time, just like how water will rust away steel given enough time. While not a constant chemical process like water with steel, it is a kinetic process of exchanging energy. While tougher armor would stand up better from them, it would still slowly erode (even if just an atom at a time).
I'm quite familiar with the micrometeorite threat. The ISS started going up in 1999. In the past 17 years, they have had no serious trouble, and I don't recall seeing erosion of their shielding being a major threat. The armor of ships in Aurora is strong enough to deal with near-miss nuclear weapons. You're looking at decades to see even the smallest effect. And note that I'm not claiming there will be no degradation. But ships rot on a timescale of months to years, and in space it will be much, much longer.
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And on top of that, it'll only really affect external components anyway, such as... armor.
Though, you probably could just coat the entire ship in a relatively cheap whipple-shield of sorts as part of the mothballing process, and only have to repair the shield once every decade or so. Even a whipple shield worth 1 layer of armor would tank micrometeorites for who knows how long.
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Also, micrometeorite would hit the whole surface of the ship, while for sea vessels rusting concentrate right after the floating line, where salt is deposited. That's a LOT of armor to erode. It would take decades to erode even a single tile of armor I'd say.
If we could see enemy armor, it would be nice if old, precursors ships had armor pockmarked by meteor though, since they've presumably been hanging around for millenias or more.
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Also, micrometeorite would hit the whole surface of the ship, while for sea vessels rusting concentrate right after the floating line, where salt is deposited. That's a LOT of armor to erode. It would take decades to erode even a single tile of armor I'd say.
If we could see enemy armor, it would be nice if old, precursors ships had armor pockmarked by meteor though, since they've presumably been hanging around for millenias or more.
Though, assuming that some ships aren't actually stored planetside, which I'd imagine it could be a possibility for the precursors to keep their ships in hermetically sealed caskets of some sort, and we might do the same with our ships if we're willing to pay the cost to assemble such a structure. (AKA hangars? though, probably not something that'd work out if we're going by the new maintenance rules...)
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Given how resilient armor in Aurora is per unit mass, I'm not sure that micrometeorites would be a threat even on precursor timescales. It's like trying to cut a steel plate with a sandblaster. The sand takes more damage than the plate does. A lot more.
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You'd need to put them up to AMM levels of damage.
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Yeah, I agree. Its kindof absurd to say that micrometeorites would erode/corrode nuke-proof armor to any meaningful extent whatsoever.
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It's probably interior systems that would degrade more. Agroponics, air purifiers, CO2 scrubbers, water purifiers; any moving parts including control equipment, switches, and levers; lighting and electrical systems, radiation shielding (depending on what kind of shielding they use), cooling systems, seals on airlocks and bulkheads, etc.
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Why would they?
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Because the exterior systems are very overbuilt, as mentioned previously, and duranium is very strong.
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It's probably interior systems that would degrade more. Agroponics, air purifiers, CO2 scrubbers, water purifiers; any moving parts including control equipment, switches, and levers; lighting and electrical systems, radiation shielding (depending on what kind of shielding they use), cooling systems, seals on airlocks and bulkheads, etc.
Yes, but only very slowly. Fill the ship with nitrogen, which keeps things from oxidizing and kills off almost any potential life which could cause problems. No humidity and no oxygen means things last a very long time indeed. We're talking years to decades with very little upkeep.
Because the exterior systems are very overbuilt, as mentioned previously, and duranium is very strong.
???
His question was 'why would the interior systems degrade', not 'why wouldn't the outside'.
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Water is not nice to things. Drain the hydroponics systems.
Also, for some reason I though we were talking about what would need maintenance during overhaul.
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Yes, but only very slowly. Fill the ship with nitrogen, which keeps things from oxidizing and kills off almost any potential life which could cause problems. No humidity and no oxygen means things last a very long time indeed. We're talking years to decades with very little upkeep.
???
His question was 'why would the interior systems degrade', not 'why wouldn't the outside'.
why not just open them to vacuum?
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Water is not nice to things. Drain the hydroponics systems.
We've established that at some length. ;)
In seriousness, so long as you do a bit of work to shut the ship down properly, there's not much that's going to kill it.
why not just open them to vacuum?
Because vacuum will do bad things to, for instance, lubricants. Designing systems to be capable of extended operations in both vacuum and atmosphere is tricky. That's not to say systems won't be qualified for short-term vacuum exposure, but long-term vacuum exposure is not a trivial problem, and I expect a lot of militaries won't specify it to cut costs. And nitrogen inerting means it's a lot easier for people to work aboard if they have to. (On the other hand, atmosphere is a good medium for transmitting damage, and I expect that they'll fight depressurized to remove that medium.) It could go either way.
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For some reason I think of ships in Aurora being a "living area" that is pressurized inside an unpressurized armor shell.
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For some reason I think of ships in Aurora being a "living area" that is pressurized inside an unpressurized armor shell.
It would probably be a very interesting balance. How much of engineering would you keep pressurized and at a comfortable temperature to allow easy crew access, and how much would you expose to space to save fuel/air/energy?
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It should not cost much: space is an awesome heat insulator, and air should leak on a closed ship. I guess the mothballing process would include thorough sealing of all entrances and airlock.
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It would probably be a very interesting balance. How much of engineering would you keep pressurized and at a comfortable temperature to allow easy crew access, and how much would you expose to space to save fuel/air/energy?
Again drawing from my own visualizations, those portions of engineering bays which store more important components and things that require frequent replacement would be pressurized with regular atmosphere allowing for quick easy access. Everything else would be either pressurized with non-recirculated inert gas (nitrogen or argon) for vacuum-sensitive components, or open to space. Large components would be stored in zero-g and accessed via a system of robotic arms or similar. Also, I see all exterior and within-armor-shell-but-still-in-vacuum maintenance being done by "Space Odyssey 2001" manned pods, similar unmanned systems, or robots running on tracks built into the ships.
Capacitor banks and power systems would be pressurized with nitrogen or argon and recirculated to remove ozone for increased component life. For some power systems, dedicated LN2 or ammonia cooling systems might be required (lasers and associated capacitor banks, large targeting computers, sensor arrays, battery banks), for others (less powerful computers mostly) the inert gas atmosphere would also be cooled.
Crew areas in exposed weaponry (turrets, missile launchers, etc.) would be normally depressurized, pressurized for crew entry, and sealed and depressurized during combat. The crew would wear full EVA suits with MMU's readily available and an escape hatch should the turret be irreparably damaged, but until evacuation was necessary they would be connected to life support ports integrated into the turret or similar.
On very large ships, especially those with long deployment times, the agroponics modules would be pressurized with an atmosphere specialized to the crops being grown, and serviced by an automated system. Crew would wear oxygen masks for entry and manual servicing and harvesting.
And yes, I overthink things. I should write a short story about a single battle in my envisioned spacecraft.
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I quite like picturing ship beind depressurized for combats. Fighters wouldn't even need a cockpit, you could have the pilot exposed to the outside. :D
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For some reason I think of ships in Aurora being a "living area" that is pressurized inside an unpressurized armor shell.
You're probably not wrong. Pressure vessels are relatively heavy, and nuclear reactors are a lot less pleasant to be around than combustion engines.
It would probably be a very interesting balance. How much of engineering would you keep pressurized and at a comfortable temperature to allow easy crew access, and how much would you expose to space to save fuel/air/energy?
Mass is the killer here. I expect a lot of the work would be done with waldoes instead of men.
It should not cost much: space is an awesome heat insulator, and air should leak on a closed ship. I guess the mothballing process would include thorough sealing of all entrances and airlock.
You'd want the vacuum compartments vented. Designing for both atmosphere and vacuum is harder than designing for one or the other.
Again drawing from my own visualizations, those portions of engineering bays which store more important components and things that require frequent replacement would be pressurized with regular atmosphere allowing for quick easy access. Everything else would be either pressurized with non-recirculated inert gas (nitrogen or argon) for vacuum-sensitive components, or open to space. Large components would be stored in zero-g and accessed via a system of robotic arms or similar. Also, I see all exterior and within-armor-shell-but-still-in-vacuum maintenance being done by "Space Odyssey 2001" manned pods, similar unmanned systems, or robots running on tracks built into the ships.
You're unlikely to see large areas pressurized that aren't human-accessible. Things like hard drives get boxes with atmosphere (they use aerodynamic forces to fly the heads over the disks), but the boxes are as small as possible and are treated as part of the hard drive. And I expect that rail-mounted robots will dominate. They can be smaller than humans (if the equipment isn't setting the size of the access ways, this is important) and are fixed to the hull instead of having the nightmare problems of flying free.
Capacitor banks and power systems would be pressurized with nitrogen or argon and recirculated to remove ozone for increased component life. For some power systems, dedicated LN2 or ammonia cooling systems might be required (lasers and associated capacitor banks, large targeting computers, sensor arrays, battery banks), for others (less powerful computers mostly) the inert gas atmosphere would also be cooled.
Why not just depressurize them? Atmosphere transmits damage surprisingly well.
Crew areas in exposed weaponry (turrets, missile launchers, etc.) would be normally depressurized, pressurized for crew entry, and sealed and depressurized during combat. The crew would wear full EVA suits with MMU's readily available and an escape hatch should the turret be irreparably damaged, but until evacuation was necessary they would be connected to life support ports integrated into the turret or similar.
I'd just keep them depressurized and use air locks. But I wouldn't put crew near the hull in the first place. It's expected (and appears to be how Aurora works), but even today, naval crews are usually quite a ways away from their weapons, a trend that will only continue in the future. The crew will be deep in the hull, as safe as possible.
On very large ships, especially those with long deployment times, the agroponics modules would be pressurized with an atmosphere specialized to the crops being grown, and serviced by an automated system. Crew would wear oxygen masks for entry and manual servicing and harvesting.
Makes sense. Those are probably going to be the only things kept pressurized in combat. And their design will be a sure sign of real vs fake navies. The real ones will have theirs heavily compartmented.
And yes, I overthink things. I should write a short story about a single battle in my envisioned spacecraft.
You're not the only one. I wrote a 150-page paper on space warfare.
I quite like picturing ship beind depressurized for combats. Fighters wouldn't even need a cockpit, you could have the pilot exposed to the outside. :D
How long are you planning on keeping the pilot there?
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You're unlikely to see large areas pressurized that aren't human-accessible. Things like hard drives get boxes with atmosphere (they use aerodynamic forces to fly the heads over the disks), but the boxes are as small as possible and are treated as part of the hard drive. And I expect that rail-mounted robots will dominate. They can be smaller than humans (if the equipment isn't setting the size of the access ways, this is important) and are fixed to the hull instead of having the nightmare problems of flying free.
- Free-floating maintenance vessels are for MAJOR repairs. The kind that can still be done out of a shipyard, but not really by a small bot (or several) on rails.
- Solid State Drives FTW
Why not just depressurize them? Atmosphere transmits damage surprisingly well.
Because electrolytic capacitors have electrolytes in them, meaning that the capacitors now have to be made strong enough to keep from bursting under the outward pressure.
I'd just keep them depressurized and use air locks. But I wouldn't put crew near the hull in the first place. It's expected (and appears to be how Aurora works), but even today, naval crews are usually quite a ways away from their weapons, a trend that will only continue in the future. The crew will be deep in the hull, as safe as possible.
True, and turrets don't even need to have sophisticated systems on board them that way either since the sensors and fire control are separate components. Except for CIWS, because CIWS are weird.
Makes sense. Those are probably going to be the only things kept pressurized in combat. And their design will be a sure sign of real vs fake navies. The real ones will have theirs heavily compartmented.
I see no reason to depressurize the entire ship during combat. It should be heavily compartmentalized, yes.
- Crew are almost certain to work in shifts, meaning about half the crew will be asleep at all times. You can't depressurize a significant fraction of the living areas.
- Many electronics systems can be air-cooled. Cooling things in a vacuum can be difficult (not always)
- Selfcontained vacuum suits and tethered vacuum suits each have their own problems that would make them highly inconvenient. I don't care how high-tech you are, the breathing requirements of a human aren't going to change. Breathable air takes up space, and tethered systems severely limit mobility and get in the way of other people.
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- Free-floating maintenance vessels are for MAJOR repairs. The kind that can still be done out of a shipyard, but not really by a small bot (or several) on rails.
- Solid State Drives FTW
For the first, I doubt there will be much work of that kind. And working in zero-G is a lot harder than it sounds. Particularly because thrusters tend to be things you don't want to stand in front of.
For the second, a lot of missions do use those instead. It was an example of how this sort of thing comes up in real life.
Because electrolytic capacitors have electrolytes in them, meaning that the capacitors now have to be made strong enough to keep from bursting under the outward pressure.
1. Why are we using electrolytic caps? We have supercapacitors.
2. So make them stronger. It will be easier than pressurizing large sections of the ship with nitrogen.
True, and turrets don't even need to have sophisticated systems on board them that way either since the sensors and fire control are separate components. Except for CIWS, because CIWS are weird.
That's exactly how CIWS work today.
I see no reason to depressurize the entire ship during combat. It should be heavily compartmentalized, yes.
- Crew are almost certain to work in shifts, meaning about half the crew will be asleep at all times. You can't depressurize a significant fraction of the living areas.
- Many electronics systems can be air-cooled. Cooling things in a vacuum can be difficult (not always)
- Selfcontained vacuum suits and tethered vacuum suits each have their own problems that would make them highly inconvenient. I don't care how high-tech you are, the breathing requirements of a human aren't going to change. Breathable air takes up space, and tethered systems severely limit mobility and get in the way of other people.
1. You depressurize when you're headed into combat. It would be the equivalent of a modern warship's general quarters.
2. That's a very solvable problem.
3. True. But air transmits damage really well (I did a fair bit of research into this, and it kept coming up even in the context of airplanes, where you can't exclude it), and I think the penalties are outweighed by the benefits. Lack of air also makes sure that no fires get started.
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Air(gas) is the best medium to send force through. You will mitigate a lot of the pressure waves caused from damage if you do evacuate the air before combat. There is also the fact that air likes to rush towards an area with lower pressure, and with space being almost nothing, the air in your ship will like to go out and play when a new window is opened in the side of your ship .
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Air(gas) is the best medium to send force through. You will mitigate a lot of the pressure waves caused from damage if you do evacuate the air before combat. There is also the fact that air likes to rush towards an area with lower pressure, and with space being almost nothing, the air in your ship will like to go out and play when a new window is opened in the side of your ship .
It's not even remotely the best medium to send force through. That's liquids. But it's a much better medium than vacuum. Blast and fire are both nearly eliminated by getting rid of it.
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It's not even remotely the best medium to send force through. That's liquids. But it's a much better medium than vacuum. Blast and fire are both nearly eliminated by getting rid of it.
*Incompressible fluids (IE: Water). Some liquids are very compressible. Also, some solids are really not compressible.
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Very compressible liquids.
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*Incompressible fluids (IE: Water). Some liquids are very compressible. Also, some solids are really not compressible.
Yes. If we want to get seriously technical, then incompressible fluids transmit damage better than compressible fluids, with the differences in transmission being based on the compressibility. Solids have entirely different mechanisms of damage. But you can't get rid of solids from your ship, and the differences make comparison nearly impossible.
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Carbon disulfide is over twice as compressible as water, with ethyl alcohol more compressible still.
They still aren't very compressible - carbon disulfide decreases in volume by 94 ppm per 1 ATM increase in pressure, and ethyl alcohol by 111 ppm per 1 ATM increase in pressure.
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Carbon disulfide is over twice as compressible as water, with ethyl alcohol more compressible still.
They still aren't very compressible - carbon disulfide decreases in volume by 94 ppm per 1 ATM increase in pressure, and ethyl alcohol by 111 ppm per 1 ATM increase in pressure.
Yes, but I wouldn't store either in bulk tanks on a spacecraft. Carbon disulfide seems rather useless, and tanks full of ethanol near military units have a disturbing tendency to suddenly turn up empty. The Soviets apparently had serious problems with military units becoming disabled because the alcohol hydraulic fluids had disappeared. This was great for NATO, because it disabled both the soldiers and the tanks at the same time.
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Yes, but I wouldn't store either in bulk tanks on a spacecraft. Carbon disulfide seems rather useless, and tanks full of ethanol near military units have a disturbing tendency to suddenly turn up empty. The Soviets apparently had serious problems with military units becoming disabled because the alcohol hydraulic fluids had disappeared. This was great for NATO, because it disabled both the soldiers and the tanks at the same time.
Carbon disulfide is a great non-polar solvent. Why you would need this is beyond me, but it is.
On ethanol:
Since when was any navy ever completely free of alcoholic beverages?
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Carbon disulfide is a great non-polar solvent. Why you would need this is beyond me, but it is.
I'm building a warship, not a chemical plant.
On ethanol:
Since when was any navy ever completely free of alcoholic beverages?
Never, but that doesn't mean you should provide large quantities of ethanol for them to play with.
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Obviously the answer is to make the entire ship out of compressible fluid.
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No longer are they torchships, but they now become boozeships.