Box Launcher Reloads

[Tuna-Fish]

The primary reason I'd like maintenance center reloads for box launchers is micromanagement reduction.  It's definitely more work to have FACs and corvettes and the like dock at a hangar for reloads than it is to send them to a population, order "load ordnance from colony" and let them sit until tubes are ready.  Hangar-only reloads would incentivize building a big hangar, and then cycling all the ships through it.

I'd be absolutely fine with the maintenance centers only reloading tubes during the production/maintenance/upkeep tick only, actually I'd be fine if it only happened once per 5 days.  If you want to load your ships faster, make hangars for them. 

[ardem]

Well in that case I think we will be seeing Space ports as maintenance facilities, I will try not see them as hangars, to me a hangar is something full enclosed, i cannot see big ships in hangars, maybe a berthing bay, similar to the shipyard docks. My point is I see mag missiles and  box missiles as cargo loading in the same way you would load fuel provisions etc, I think the difference is you need a spaceport/hangar to do box reloads as it requires EVA to load them.

I see missile magazines as a prestack crate, that gets loaded into the cargo bay and moved into missile magazines. Box launchers need to be eva singularly and inserted then electronic tested for make sure there is a correct connection. This definitely would take more time, impossible to do without a facility possibility/probably

I think Balance box launchers yes you can launch them all in one hit, but they are a one hit wonder, you need to go back to base to reload, this make long term deployments not great, but also you can make box launch AAM as well to counter that punch, then have magazine launch missile ships in he fleet to carry on with long term or smaller engagements, so I do not see box launch missiles are too OP.

I see the maintenance platforms where you would load box missiles, and my assumption would be box launchers would be a normal cargo transfer for that ship, with maybe a little extra time included for reload. An hour per box launcher. But I do not see that as impacting maintenance, in the same way load food, fuel etc does not impact it. They are separate staff that do the jobs in parallel to the maintenance crews.

[QuakeIV]

How difficult would it actually be to add something like a munition support facility and module?  It seems like adding a specialized facility for supporting reloading would be reasonable and somewhat logical.  If its reasonably easy to add maybe we should go with that.

That way you could have ships that carry missiles and have fancy re-arming systems to bring box launcher ships back up to readiness, without having to haul around a gigantic pile of machinery designed to do comprehensive maintenance.

e:  Also that way hangars are only useful for transportation and storage, rather than implicitly having the ability to manage munitions.  You could imagine a munition support module unfolds a scaffolding around the target ship, as opposed to a gigantic hangar module that surrounds the ship with solid walls.

[Hazard]

Considering missiles cargo isn't that bad an idea actually. It'd need redoing the current cargo handling mechanics towards the new fuel handling mechanics, but what if you imagined loading/unloading of all cargo at a rate of (tons per hour)? You'd need to stat every facility by weight but that isn't hard since those go by 'number of cargo bays with tonnage based capacity' in numbers, while you could weigh combat battalions towards their base combat rating, possibly weighing either attack or defense values as heavier.

You could then change the cargo and troop bays as well as the magazines to having a rating of how much cargo by weight they can take on in a given time frame and have cargo handling systems either provide a flat boost or a stacking multiplier. Divide cargo handling systems into civilian systems and military ones and give the civilian systems major penalties in loading/unloading speeds of military equipment like missiles and troops while the military systems make a ship count as military and done.

You could even make drop pods a descendant tech from military cargo handling systems that are meant to answer the question 'how do I get troops on the ground in the shortest possible time?'

[ardem]

I like the idea of modelling all cargo better, even if it abstract, and having research in cargo efficiency. Which we already have but it is more society based then shipbased.

 I almost think maintenance facility should be a new structure. Not abstracted like it is now, almost like shipyards are now, this way you can create a facility like you do with shipyards and then add on your cargo efficiency. It also like shipyards another thing that can be blown away from a space war.

This facility has docking berths or capacity / cargo loading ability / a hangar for small vessels / maybe some point defence / missile magazines / Crew quarters / troop facilities  and floats in space in the orbit like shipyard. This way your able to set up maintenance facilities anywhere, which also handles cargo loading fuel etc. It is the staging point for your fleet needs.

Also the loading from the facility to the ships should be as it is now in hours, however the loading from the planet to the facility should be a long time in days, this show how hard it is to get things from the ground up to the facility.

We will then see proper space ports in my opinion. This would solve a lot of the issues in my opinion.

[Barkhorn]

I just want the new system to not increase the amount of micromanagement it takes to reload box launchers.  I do not like the idea of having to assign motherships and land every ship I build in a hangar just to reload my launchers.  It's not the logistics of it that bothers me; I don't mind building the hangars.  I just really don't want any more things to manage that don't really add anything.  There's already a huge amount of clicking to do simple things, please don't make it worse.

[El Pip]

I just want the new system to not increase the amount of micromanagement it takes to reload box launchers.  I do not like the idea of having to assign motherships and land every ship I build in a hangar just to reload my launchers.  It's not the logistics of it that bothers me; I don't mind building the hangars.  I just really don't want any more things to manage that don't really add anything.  There's already a huge amount of clicking to do simple things, please don't make it worse.

Absolutely this. A large special Box Launchers Reloading facility you have to build and transport everywhere would be preferable to more clicking around with hangars just to carry out a simple reload.

[ardem]

I just want the new system to not increase the amount of micromanagement it takes to reload box launchers.  I do not like the idea of having to assign motherships and land every ship I build in a hangar just to reload my launchers.  It's not the logistics of it that bothers me; I don't mind building the hangars.  I just really don't want any more things to manage that don't really add anything.  There's already a huge amount of clicking to do simple things, please don't make it worse.

I want to add on what I suggesting, the facility I was talking about should be all maintaining and cargo loading should be auto done in orbit much like it is now for 6.0 no micro management, it should be as easy as orbiting the planet as we do now. Also the facility should auto restock itself from the planet if it can, that way you do not need to look after it. the hangar is not for loading its just that fighter that need hangar not to incur maintenance can be accomplished. Its not for bigger ships. Also the facility like shipyards should be expanded easily not like ships trying spaceport where you have to make it in a shipyard first. But I agree as little micro for maintenance as possible

I really like how easy maintenance is now in 6, I do not want it harder I would like it more fleshed out with a facility without engines that can be tugged to other sites if needed.

[chrislocke2000]

I'd far prefer to go the maintenance route than the hanger route, the idea of having to sit and click through docking and undocking large numbers of ships just to reload them sends a shudder down my spine.

[Rich.h]

I'm all for option 2 in this case, it will make things nice a simple with regards to game code so reduce possible bugs. It demands zero extra cpu power and thus adds to the "every little helps" ethos with regards to turn times.

For those folks who mention the extra micro management this would create, it really should only sum up to around two or three clicks per task force. Does the simple method of give an order to land and assign mothership, set the loadout of one ship, then just use the reload parasites button not still work in Aurora C#?

In general unless you are using larger ships with box launchers then the craft will likely already have a mothership hanger in play so the first steps are not additional. Even if using a larger ship it just means the mothership tag is getting changed each time they reload, this though doesn't involve any extra mouse clicks or such as it is in the same orders window and any normal movement and will be straight forward to have them set back to their original hanger mothership.

[Elouda]

Agreed with the concerns about the hangar option adding to micromanagement. As someone who uses box launchers on basically everything, having to assign motherships to my battleships seems a little odd...

[Detros]

If there are so many users who currently like to use box launchers on nearly all ships I don't see adding few more clicks for them to incentive building other armaments too as a bad move.

There can be "Rearm TF" command which slowly starts loading missiles into TF magazines, the slower the more ships are in given TF, sped up by standard logistic bonus.

[Barkhorn]

We should not be balancing via making the game harder to play.  The best games are easy to play but hard to play well.

I'm not saying the game is too complex, to be clear.  I don't want any mechanics removed or simplified.  I just want the UI to be as easy to use as it can be without dumbing down the gameplay.

[Elouda]

If there are so many users who currently like to use box launchers on nearly all ships I don't see adding few more clicks for them to incentive building other armaments too as a bad move.

To be honest, atleast in my case I use them simply because they seem the most realistic option, if we extrapolate from current wet-navies anyway. I very much like some of the changes Steve has already mentioned (such as the chance for them to detonate if they have missiles inside) that will make other choices more viable, but suggesting that adding more interface 'work' to the user is a valid way to discourage their use is asinine. I suppose by this logic next we're going to have Meson weapons require setting the target again every increment, and Gauss cannons has to be toggled back onto PD mode every increment?

[Zincat]

To be honest, atleast in my case I use them simply because they seem the most realistic option, if we extrapolate from current wet-navies anyway. I very much like some of the changes Steve has already mentioned (such as the chance for them to detonate if they have missiles inside) that will make other choices more viable, but suggesting that adding more interface 'work' to the user is a valid way to discourage their use is asinine. I suppose by this logic next we're going to have Meson weapons require setting the target again every increment, and Gauss cannons has to be toggled back onto PD mode every increment?

I agree that more interface work is not the solution to discourage the usage of box launchers. More clicks by itself is not a good proposal. However, the hangar solution makes sense if extrapolating from a current-world situation, because in the real world, and by extent in the supposed future-Aurora-world, reloading box launchers is not easy. So it cannot simply be like "moving cargo". So it makes sense that specific structures (like hangars) are required in order to reload such weapons. Especially when away from planets, as TN ships are not normally completely moving in "real space"

So, the hangar solution is not good "because it needs more clicks", but rather it is good "because it makes sense and is realistic". And the people that say they do not want hangars since "they need more clicks" are making an argument based on convenience, and not on realism and game balance.


And there IS a game balance problem. I will say it again, because of how the 5-seconds timeframe works in the game, box launchers have an overwhelming TACTICAL advantage in the game. They may be costly, but unless you are at a very advanced tech level (max level gauss cannons),  at equal tonnage a box launcher fleet will basically always win. Low-tech point defense simply cannot keep up.

There is no low-tech "area point defense" weapon system, capable of impairing/destroying multiple missiles every 5 seconds. Even ECM is useless, it just reduces the range, it never destroys missiles or make them lose their target permanently.
This  is, in my opinion, a limitation of the Aurora combat system. Understandable perhaps, but no less unbalanced. And because of that, box launchers remain king in the tactical combat. And really, the only weapon system that makes sense in a ship vs ship scenario if you minmax.