C# Aurora Changes Discussion

[Father Tim]

Reguarding boarding combat, you could have a chance of the ship surrendering every increment based on crew casualties. . .  This would simulate the fact that the entire crew doesn't need to be wiped out to take a ship but rather just critical elements need to be taken, maybe the officers, bridge, engineering, etc,

It should be based on Racial Determination, or perhaps Racial Militarism.  I would say 0% chance of surrender/capture if casualty percentage is less than half of RD.

[Steve Walmsley]

Would it be particularly difficult to code in an option to allow you to initiate a boarding attempt on one of your own ships to try and reinforce the defenders?

Not particularly. I think this probably should be an option. I've moved on from boarding at the moment (currently coding Star Swarm) but when I go back for round 2, probably after the next test campaign starts, I will add this and some rules for effect on ship capability and chance of surrender

[DEEPenergy]

Hi Steve, have you decided on changes for Star Swarm yet? And if so, will you give us the spoilers?

[Hazard]

Would it be particularly difficult to code in an option to allow you to initiate a boarding attempt on one of your own ships to try and reinforce the defenders?

Not particularly. I think this probably should be an option. I've moved on from boarding at the moment (currently coding Star Swarm) but when I go back for round 2, probably after the next test campaign starts, I will add this and some rules for effect on ship capability and chance of surrender

If you are going to allow boarding reinforcements it would probably be best if you allow friendly reinforcements to arrive with much higher chances of successful deployment, simply because they will be deploying in coordination with the bridge to ensure minimum casualties when entering.

[Steve Walmsley]

Hi Steve, have you decided on changes for Star Swarm yet? And if so, will you give us the spoilers?

Yes, all changes made and ships designed. Just coding the AI at the moment and then the ground forces

I don't want to give too much away just yet but I will say the following:

They retain the same mine and recycle ships concept, although now it is done in a different way. There are still hive ships and FAC swarms, but there are other mid-range ships as well to support them. Their weapons have also changed and they are not exactly the same as player weapons. They are now somewhere between a race and a spoiler race, as they are prepared to explore and expand, and I even considered having them as a potential starter NPR. Their backstory is that they are from a different dimension (beyond our own and the Aether) and have been attracted by the use of TN ships (like moths to a flame), which is why they are starting to appear now. There is now some influence from WH40k Tyranids.

[Garfunkel]

So tempted to read that but no, must preserve as much secrecy as possible! 

[QuakeIV]

Would it be particularly difficult to code in an option to allow you to initiate a boarding attempt on one of your own ships to try and reinforce the defenders?

Not particularly. I think this probably should be an option. I've moved on from boarding at the moment (currently coding Star Swarm) but when I go back for round 2, probably after the next test campaign starts, I will add this and some rules for effect on ship capability and chance of surrender

If you are going to allow boarding reinforcements it would probably be best if you allow friendly reinforcements to arrive with much higher chances of successful deployment, simply because they will be deploying in coordination with the bridge to ensure minimum casualties when entering.

You can just tell the ship to stop and get 100% boarding success.

[hyramgraff]

Would it be particularly difficult to code in an option to allow you to initiate a boarding attempt on one of your own ships to try and reinforce the defenders?

Not particularly. I think this probably should be an option. I've moved on from boarding at the moment (currently coding Star Swarm) but when I go back for round 2, probably after the next test campaign starts, I will add this and some rules for effect on ship capability and chance of surrender

I'm looking forward to reading the first AAR with attempts to repel boarders causing a firefight on the hull of a flagship. 

[MarcAFK]

Reguarding boarding combat, you could have a chance of the ship surrendering every increment based on crew casualties. . .  This would simulate the fact that the entire crew doesn't need to be wiped out to take a ship but rather just critical elements need to be taken, maybe the officers, bridge, engineering, etc,

It should be based on Racial Determination, or perhaps Racial Militarism.  I would say 0% chance of surrender/capture if casualty percentage is less than half of RD.

This too, also with a high Xenophobia or something maybe they don't accept surrender and just finish the crew off.(probably still capture 5% or something for interrogation though)

[Conscript Gary]

I got curious about the numbers and dug into it a bit, and the huge buff to the success rate of landing boots on the hull is really, well, huge. I don't just mean the lowered speed multiple necessary to reach a 100% success rate, but what the odds look like even in the worst case of being just as fast as the target thanks to how the dice rolls work now.
In the old VB6 case, after rolling those twenty d10s you'd have a hefty 80% chance of having no survivors at all, and the odds of having more than a few of your marine company survive drop very quickly to nil.
As it'll be in C#, you'll still be taking huge casualties and are likely to only end up with ten or eleven dudes on the target... but you're also dramatically more likely to get at least one dude on there. For a formation the same size as the old marine company, the chance of everybody dying in the jump is just a few thousandths of a percent thanks to rolling per-unit. If the C# dudes are boarding-capable, that chance goes down five orders of magnitude.
A single dude probably won't be able to take the ship once inside, but the way the math works out means that if a boarding attempt reaches the point of actually releasing troops it'll basically always end up resolved as a combat between the crew and the boarders, even if trivially. This should be interesting. It also means more fractional speed advantages can provide a tangible benefit, which is nice.

[Garfunkel]

That's not a bad thing, really. Nothing more anti-climatic than losing your entire Marine company to the void of space.

[Lucifer, the Morning Star]

Hey, Steve, in the new screenshots of your test campaign there is are two checkboxes: Design ground forces and Design ships. Is that like the VB6 one, where it's just starting designs, or does that keep making designs throughout the game as you get tech?

[Jorgen_CAB]

In reply to the missile issue versus PD there are a few things to take into considerations, if they are equally worth investigating is another thing.

For example PD are super efficient at dealing with full size missile launchers from a cost perspective, especially now when ASM are going to be bigger in general.

On the flip side they are made almost irrelevant if you use box launchers on your ships.

The Agility as it is implemented makes it very insignificant i the early game and extremely powerful as technology progress and it is an exponential effectiveness as we also can see from the numbers presented in the thread earlier.

I still think that Agility as a mechanic is nice to but in order to make it impact more properly it could just be set to a specific value instead of removed OR simply flatten its impact considerably and have less technology steps.

When it comes to point defenses there is a fundamental "problem" between full size launchers who are very cost effective to use PD against and box launchers (on capital ships) which makes PD almost useless. Sure, I have no problem restricting the use of these weapons to fit into an acceptable balance. But I think it is worth investigating some time eventually at how the FC, salvo and missiles versus PD works going forward.

In the current version of VB6 Aurora it is prohibitively expensive to use "normal" missile strategies with full size launchers of say size 4+ against any decent PD unless you have a serious numbers advantage. The only way is to overpower PD with huge volleys of missiles OR you can confuse the PD with manipulating FC versus salvo rates which just become gamey and doesn't belong in a role-playing campaign.

I don't have any real good solution to these "problems" right now but I think they might be worth discussing at least.

For role-play I have always divided missiles into groups AMM (size 1) anti-fighter/FAC (size 3-5) anti-ship (size 5-12). In addition to this I have only allowed box launchers on ships that are suppose to act within a single system or on recon and smaller patrol ships even if they potentially can act in more than the same system. But never put box launchers on capital ships. Full size launchers was ever only used against things which are relatively bad at defending against missiles such as fighters, FAC or other smaller and often faster vessels. While capital ships with ASM always used reduced sized launchers to haul bigger volumes. If you can't penetrate enemy defenses on the first or second try there are no point in continue the bombardment (waste of time and resources). Using full size launchers with ASM always seemed to end up with one side exhausting their missiles and the other using mostly PD to fend them of unless the forces were very uneven but in that case reduced launchers would also work anyway.

[Lucifer, the Morning Star]

In reply to the missile issue versus PD there are a few things to take into considerations, if they are equally worth investigating is another thing.

For example PD are super efficient at dealing with full size missile launchers from a cost perspective, especially now when ASM are going to be bigger in general.

On the flip side they are made almost irrelevant if you use box launchers on your ships.

The Agility as it is implemented makes it very insignificant i the early game and extremely powerful as technology progress and it is an exponential effectiveness as we also can see from the numbers presented in the thread earlier.

I still think that Agility as a mechanic is nice to but in order to make it impact more properly it could just be set to a specific value instead of removed OR simply flatten its impact considerably and have less technology steps.

When it comes to point defenses there is a fundamental "problem" between full size launchers who are very cost effective to use PD against and box launchers (on capital ships) which makes PD almost useless. Sure, I have no problem restricting the use of these weapons to fit into an acceptable balance. But I think it is worth investigating some time eventually at how the FC, salvo and missiles versus PD works going forward.

In the current version of VB6 Aurora it is prohibitively expensive to use "normal" missile strategies with full size launchers of say size 4+ against any decent PD unless you have a serious numbers advantage. The only way is to overpower PD with huge volleys of missiles OR you can confuse the PD with manipulating FC versus salvo rates which just become gamey and doesn't belong in a role-playing campaign.

I don't have any real good solution to there "problems" right now but I think they might be worth discussing at least.

For role-play I have always divided missiles into groups AMM (size 1) anti-fighter/FAC (size 3-5) anti-ship (size 5-12). In addition to this I have only allowed box launchers on ships that are suppose to act within a single system or on recon and smaller patrol ships even if they potentially can act in more than the same system. But never put box launchers on capital ships. Full size launchers was ever only used against things which are relatively bad at defending against missiles such as fighters, FAC or other smaller and often faster vessels. While capital ships with ASM always used reduced sized launchers to haul bigger volumes. If you can't penetrate enemy defenses on the first or second try there are no point in continue the bombardment (waste of time and resources). Using full size launchers with ASM always seemed to end up with one side exhausting their missiles and the other using mostly PD to fend them of unless the forces were very uneven but in that case reduced launchers would also work anyway.

That Conversation was in Suggestions, this is the Discussion thread.

[King-Salomon]

That Conversation was in Suggestions, this is the Discussion thread.

where it belongs... as the suggestion was made some time ago and all the other posts (including mine) are more or less discussion or counter-suggestions... maybe a mod could move them here to clean the suggestion thread ... a new thread for the topic wouldn't be bad idea either...