"This is pretty much my concern. Usually when I use fighters I am using large groups numbering in the dozens, potentially even over a hundred if I am using very large carriers/fleet. I'm sure I'm not alone, if Steve's BSG AAR is anything to go by, either. Managing a dozen small wings instead of 1-2 large ones is an exercise in tedium when it comes to fighter combat"
A: While I understand your concern, I do not share the same experience in terms of using carriers and I do tend to build rather large ones, furthermore the point I was making was primarily that the cost of an EW fighter should be high, a very dense in terms of cost platform that are not cheap to field and you dont want to be spamming them out.
"I don't agree with this line of reasoning. There is nothing you "have to" do in Aurora, but making a mechanic which promotes a micromanagey style of gameplay to use it optimally is not a direction I think the game design benefits from taking."
A: I dont believe it promotes micromanagement to that extent and this can be worked around as previous points will discuss, one mans micromangement is anothers fun.
"I'm not sure jump drives are a good comparison. A squadron jump is (at least for an NPR) a fairly rigid procedure that can be executed in basically the same way every time (though I admit, I'm not sure how well NPRs actually conduct these, since I've never let them do so successfully).
"One simple example of a challenge for NPRs: if the smaller fleets have different top speeds, how will the NPR handle this? NPRs currently do not adjust their fleet speeds manually for any reason, AFAIK - in principle, this should be simple to add in, but there are a lot of edge cases even for this simple question - for example, if a ship in one fleet takes engine damage and that fleet slows down, should the other fleets also slow down? This is the kind of tactical decision making the NPR doesn't necessarily do well right now - it can handle one big fleet okay, but multiple small fleets don't necessarily cooperate well."
A: They are a good comparison because of a few things, number one is the fact that the AI specifically creates jump fleets for attack and what not this proves out that they can handle building fleets around specialized ships and operating them, secondly the radius and tonnage limits in my opinion work brilliantly for balancing and they already exist as systems, my goal in suggesting the mechanics i suggest is to use current systems to both cut down on time and effort from steves end and give an idea of how it would work within the system of aurora consistently.
"This isn't really the same, since active sensor contact is a one-to-all function - it even works for ships in separate fleets. What I mean by squadrons or by the example of data links is the game design which is built on using squadrons of smaller size as a "building block" for game mechanics, which makes it a lot easier and more intuitive to build in these kind of limited-number-of-ships mechanics."
A: What I was primarily trying to say that information being shared is possible and that this means systems I alude to where jamming range (akin to active sensor range) could apply to all ships under the proper limitations in the same way
"As mentioned, I do like the idea, but I think we have to be careful with "realistic" as there is no rule that says wet navy or aircraft EW mechanics should match space warfare EW mechanics particularly closely. In some cases it makes sense, active jamming for example should work on similar principles regardless, but other concepts such as stealth do not translate so well."
A: Perhaps realistic was not the right word, I do think however that electronic warfare should be based in some reality to make it relatable and interesting that means using existing examples where they exist and the best examples of it are in wet navy operations on earth since space navy operations share similar naming, capabilities and weapon systems as well as overall design concepts, in terms of the concepts you brought up, stealth is in aurora and is essentially what stealth is IRL, in aurora its a cloaking device that reduces your TCS or total cross section, in real life the design of the aircraft among other thing scan help reduce its Radar Cross Section making it harder to detect by radars, this translates pretty damn well and is the same mechanic.
