Tugs of war

[vorpal+5 (OP)]

A topic taking inspiration of the thread about orbital forts.
The subject is a bit 'tongue in cheek  / provocative'. I believe it is not sane to do what I propose ...

Here is the subject ... What do you think of a race building only 'immobile' warships, which are moved by defenseless armored tugs? This is pushing the concept of modularity to the extreme, but in theory, you can save a lot of BP and minerals doing so.

[Froggiest1982]

A topic taking inspiration of the thread about orbital forts.
The subject is a bit 'tongue in cheek  / provocative'. I believe it is not sane to do what I propose ...

Here is the subject ... What do you think of a race building only 'immobile' warships, which are moved by defenseless armored tugs? This is pushing the concept of modularity to the extreme, but in theory, you can save a lot of BP and minerals doing so.

The beauty of Aurora is that within its rules you can do all you want, the only limit is your imagination.

Regarding your question, why not?

There are already only fighters playstyle.
Some people play only military ships so that all ships require maintenance.
I heard of few players playing without JG stabilization allowed.
One friend of mine plays without missiles.

[Dutchling]

I'd say try it out. Can slap some CIWS on the tugs too if you're afraid of them getting shot at.

[skoormit]

One friend of mine plays without missiles.

I mean, this is a reasonable choice just for sanity purposes.
Missile ships require multiple extra layers of thought: design, production, supply, etc.
A 100% beam navy is so much simpler.

[skoormit]

I'd be more likely to try this out if the game supported using multiple tugs to move a single target.

If we could do that, we would not need a separate tug design for each weight level in our navy.
For example, I tend to have 1kt, 2kt, 5kt, 10kt, 20kt, 30kt, 50kt, and 100kt (and multiples of 100kt) weight classes for military ships.
To move all these at the same speed, I need a tug design for each weight class.
That means 8+ additional shipyards, and corresponding fleet management complexity.
But if I could use multiple tugs to pull a single ship, I could probably get by with 3 tug yards (1-5kt, 10-50kt, 100+kt).

[Vastrat]

Aurora is a very open playstyle game allowing you to do what ever your heart desires, and I wouldn't be surprised if someone hasn't already done this. That said I think it is an interesting idea and may have to try it at some point.

[vorpal+5 (OP)]

Skoormit has a point though, might be a pain with the variable speed.

[Migi]

A topic taking inspiration of the thread about orbital forts.
The subject is a bit 'tongue in cheek  / provocative'. I believe it is not sane to do what I propose ...

Here is the subject ... What do you think of a race building only 'immobile' warships, which are moved by defenseless armored tugs? This is pushing the concept of modularity to the extreme, but in theory, you can save a lot of BP and minerals doing so.

I like this idea.
I can imagine super heavily armoured beam ships being towed towards each other and then dropped in space to fight it out, like a pair of  ironclads.
I think it would work well with a setting similar to Garfunkel's Aurora 1890.
I sort of had a similar idea for small mission pods but never got around to implementing it.

[Droll]

I'd be more likely to try this out if the game supported using multiple tugs to move a single target.

If we could do that, we would not need a separate tug design for each weight level in our navy.
For example, I tend to have 1kt, 2kt, 5kt, 10kt, 20kt, 30kt, 50kt, and 100kt (and multiples of 100kt) weight classes for military ships.
To move all these at the same speed, I need a tug design for each weight class.
That means 8+ additional shipyards, and corresponding fleet management complexity.
But if I could use multiple tugs to pull a single ship, I could probably get by with 3 tug yards (1-5kt, 10-50kt, 100+kt).

The multiple tug idea is already on the suggestions thread IIRC. If not it should be cuz its a great idea.

[Garfunkel]

What do you think of a race building only 'immobile' warships, which are moved by defenseless armored tugs?

I can imagine super heavily armoured beam ships being towed towards each other and then dropped in space to fight it out, like a pair of ironclads. I think it would work well with a setting similar to Garfunkel's Aurora 1890.

Hmm, I think you just gave the French an idea... 

[vorpal+5 (OP)]

I don't get the reference, Garfunkel? Did the actual French govt has announced the construction of a 63.000 tons battleship? 

[Garfunkel]

No no no, just in my 1890 campaign this idea could work and the French have sufficient industrial power to pull it off but are also behind the other powers so they would have the motivation to do things differently. I'll use this idea later, it'll be a sort of Maginot line in space thing!

[Jorgen_CAB]

In one of my multi-faction games I once had an insect like race that never deployed regular ships but only utilized stations with fighters and or FAC to defend themselves. This race was more or less ignoring the humans and could build a settlement in their space completely disregarding any sentient beings convention of borders, they had no concept of that. They also were not aggressive in any way unless they were provoked... conflict did arise from time to time though.

As it is not viable to use tugs as ships... too much micro they obviously used regular cargo and transport ships... but they did not deploy any capital star ships of any kind... they had no use for them as they NEVER attacked anyone... they only defended their own space and would do so very ferociously.

I would say that it actually worked pretty well for them in general using this strategy and they were quite lethal once provoked.

Using tugs to move everything seem like a micro nightmare in my opinion and not really feasible.

[Froggiest1982]

In one of my multi-faction games I once had an insect like race that never deployed regular ships but only utilized stations with fighters and or FAC to defend themselves. This race was more or less ignoring the humans and could build a settlement in their space completely disregarding any sentient beings convention of borders, they had no concept of that. They also were not aggressive in any way unless they were provoked... conflict did arise from time to time though.

As it is not viable to use tugs as ships... too much micro they obviously used regular cargo and transport ships... but they did not deploy any capital star ships of any kind... they had no use for them as they NEVER attacked anyone... they only defended their own space and would do so very ferociously.

I would say that it actually worked pretty well for them in general using this strategy and they were quite lethal once provoked.

Using tugs to move everything seem like a micro nightmare in my opinion and not really feasible.

 

More than 10 years, still hearing of things never seen and still seeing things never heard.

[Jorgen_CAB]

More than 10 years, still hearing of things never seen and still seeing things never heard.

It creates a bit of fun and flare to add something truly alien to a campaign... there were four human factions in this campaign that I run and it was fun with this insect race continually interfering in human business with no regard of borders and hardly no communication... they just assumed humans would cooperate and share resources and could never understand why humans would like to own things as their own.

As I also used a vastly different strategy for them it was an interesting strategic and tactical situation to deal with.