Author Topic: C# Aurora Changes Discussion  (Read 441972 times)

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Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2385 on: September 02, 2019, 06:47:41 AM »
On the subject of ground combat, if I mount a logistics module on a light vehicle, and the logistics module is consumed, do I lose my vehicle? It would seem... weird to consume a vehicle, unless that is considered as folded into the cost. Wouldn't a motorized logistics unit be more of an upfront cost, but paid for by the fact that you can just tack more GSP onto it and truck it out to the front line?

I suppose my question then is, once I build a Supply Truck, and it's given all of it's GSP in combat... do I need to build a whole nuther truck... or can I just 'reload' it?

Like Steve said, it's lost. It's something I disagree with him on and prefer a GSP system similar to MSPs, even if I understand why he does it.

If it helps, just call logistic units Ground MSPs instead of Supply Vehicles. The actual function is the same.
 

Offline Father Tim

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2386 on: September 02, 2019, 08:12:07 AM »
Maybe just call it "avoid combat" instead since that would make sense for both FFD and real non-combat units.

Yes, good idea.

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Highly dispersed.
 

Offline Hazard

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2387 on: September 02, 2019, 10:52:34 AM »
Highly dispersed is the description for ground units that ended up hugging a nuke due to orbital bombardment.
 

Offline sloanjh (OP)

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2388 on: September 02, 2019, 11:21:55 AM »
Maybe just call it "avoid combat" instead since that would make sense for both FFD and real non-combat units.

Yes, good idea.

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Which brings up the question of whether it should be a design-time decision for the whole type or a combat-time decision for a single instance.  Which in turn OTOH would lead to micro-management and is (being able to try to stay away from combat in the battle) why the multiple echelons are there.

Not advocating one way or another (I actually lean in favor of keeping it at design time), just pointing out a bit of inconsistency in the naming.  And as we say at (software) work, names are important :)

Ok, changed my mind after that last bit.  I'm advocating keeping the behavior the same and not changing the name.  Since names are important (think about all the conversations of jump gates vs. wormholes we've had over the years).

John
 

Offline sloanjh (OP)

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2389 on: September 02, 2019, 11:32:06 AM »
Quote from: Steve Walmsley
A new 'Stabilise Lagrange Point' order is available for planets where stabilisation is possible. The stabilisation ship remains at the associated planet while the task is carried out.

Am I misreading that, or is the ship sitting in close orbit of the planet and then the LP pops into usability a sixth of the orbit away from where the work is being done? I suppose I'll just have to be stubbornly oblivious to that inconvenient bit of action-at-a-distance in any of my games.

On a slightly different note, I'm guessing that now LPs will be shown even if there's currently only one in the system (and thus nowhere to go from it).

Yes, going to the planet is easier. It is a fixed location and the ship will remain in orbit when the planet moves. Otherwise, the construction ship is constantly having to chase the right location in deep space.

Yes to single LPs.

(As I'm sure you know) There are actually two Lagrange points (L4 & L5) at +/- 60 degrees.  I forget how it works now - does Aurora only ever give one of them (i.e. leading or trailing)?  The only reason I see for adding the ability to have both to the game mechanics is, as Garfunkel pointed out, for intra-system shortcuts.  Otherwise you might limit to only leading or trailing showing up (with some technobabble about the direction of the orbit breaking the symmetry).  What set me down this road was "if the ship's at the planet, then which Lagrange point magically appears when you're done stabilizing" - I figure that's messier to code up than just only ever having leading or trailing.

John
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2390 on: September 02, 2019, 11:39:48 AM »
(As I'm sure you know) There are actually two Lagrange points (L4 & L5) at +/- 60 degrees.  I forget how it works now - does Aurora only ever give one of them (i.e. leading or trailing)?  The only reason I see for adding the ability to have both to the game mechanics is, as Garfunkel pointed out, for intra-system shortcuts.  Otherwise you might limit to only leading or trailing showing up (with some technobabble about the direction of the orbit breaking the symmetry).  What set me down this road was "if the ship's at the planet, then which Lagrange point magically appears when you're done stabilizing" - I figure that's messier to code up than just only ever having leading or trailing.

John

Aurora uses the L5 for the Lagrange point for jumping purposes, but uses the L4 and L5 for the creation of Trojan asteroids.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2391 on: September 02, 2019, 11:44:33 AM »
Which brings up the question of whether it should be a design-time decision for the whole type or a combat-time decision for a single instance.  Which in turn OTOH would lead to micro-management and is (being able to try to stay away from combat in the battle) why the multiple echelons are there.

I found when playing a battle that the echelons work well in an operational sense (keeping the artillery and most of the supply well back) but not as well tactically. If you have certain units such as HQs and supply with the front line forces they would still be less likely to come under attack than the infantry in the trenches. The echelons are a choice, while the 'non-combat' is based on the type of unit. A 'non-combat' unit in the front line is still much more likely to be attacked than a 'non-combat' unit in support or rear echelon, but less likely to be attacked than combat forces of similar mass.
 

Offline sloanjh (OP)

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2392 on: September 02, 2019, 12:07:45 PM »
Which brings up the question of whether it should be a design-time decision for the whole type or a combat-time decision for a single instance.  Which in turn OTOH would lead to micro-management and is (being able to try to stay away from combat in the battle) why the multiple echelons are there.

I found when playing a battle that the echelons work well in an operational sense (keeping the artillery and most of the supply well back) but not as well tactically. If you have certain units such as HQs and supply with the front line forces they would still be less likely to come under attack than the infantry in the trenches. The echelons are a choice, while the 'non-combat' is based on the type of unit. A 'non-combat' unit in the front line is still much more likely to be attacked than a 'non-combat' unit in support or rear echelon, but less likely to be attacked than combat forces of similar mass.

Understood and agreed.  The question is should an infantry unit in the trenches be able to go non-combat (e.g. either voluntarily or if their morale is low) and leave the fighting to other units, or should it be an innate property of the type of unit.

I'm in favor of keeping it the way you've implemented it; I'm just trying to bring up the alternative so a conscious choice can be made (if it hasn't been already). 

John

PS - While typing the above, I started thinking that the run-time decision (hah!  my software side leaked through there - I'm thinking of this as run-time vs. compile-time binding) might be a cool way to represent broken units, and that e.g. if a broken unit *is* attacked that would make a good breakthrough opportunity (note that the ground combat discussion was long enough ago that I don't remember any of the detailed mechanisms).  The downside of this is that if one of your "non-combatant" units in the front lines got hit it would also give a breakthrough opportunity, so I'm still in the "keep it the way you've got it now" camp, but the other idea has some interesting opportunities.
 

Offline Rabid_Cog

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2393 on: September 02, 2019, 01:15:23 PM »
While this risks getting into the territory of the suggestion thread, the idea of certain units avoiding combat as part of their design creates another interesting potential future mechanic. That of units the specifically target these units in order to achieve breakthroughs/exploit weaknesses. Perhaps some form of special forces unit that ignores the size modifier of 'avoid combat'.

Anyway, just saying that you can play with those mechanics in the future to create a situation where certain units prefer to engage certain other units.
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Offline Bremen

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2394 on: September 02, 2019, 01:43:10 PM »
And it's worth noting that the ability isn't reducing casualties, it's making other units more likely to be hit in their place; assuming I understand it right, if you had an entire formation set on "Avoid combat" it would work out exactly the same as if none of them were (except that they'd have massive penalties to their own fire).

So if you have 10 "avoid combat" FFD and 1000 infantry, the FFD units will still become much more vulnerable as the number of infantry units gets worn down. Essentially it's just making other units serve as bodyguards for the units you're conserving (and as a result the protected units can't effectively fire their own weapons), which makes sense to me.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2395 on: September 02, 2019, 03:06:26 PM »
And it's worth noting that the ability isn't reducing casualties, it's making other units more likely to be hit in their place; assuming I understand it right, if you had an entire formation set on "Avoid combat" it would work out exactly the same as if none of them were (except that they'd have massive penalties to their own fire).

So if you have 10 "avoid combat" FFD and 1000 infantry, the FFD units will still become much more vulnerable as the number of infantry units gets worn down. Essentially it's just making other units serve as bodyguards for the units you're conserving (and as a result the protected units can't effectively fire their own weapons), which makes sense to me.

Yes, exactly. Also this is permanent at design time. A unit can't choose to swap to non-combat.

 

Offline Bremen

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2396 on: September 02, 2019, 04:13:53 PM »
Now I'm wondering if it would be worth having the penalty to accuracy not imply to bombardment weapons. Then you could have light bombardment weapons (like mortars) embedded with infantry and using the avoid combat option.

That might be overcomplicating the process, though, especially as far as documenting it/explaining it to players who aren't following C# development as avidly as us here :P
 

Offline Borealis4x

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2397 on: September 02, 2019, 09:26:01 PM »
I apologize if this has been addressed already, but will Aurora 4x address the civilian organization of empires as well as the military?

Can you have a federal presidential system with, say, a President, Chief of Staff, Attorney General and all their secretaries and deputy secretaries that you can customize to your hearts content like your military OoB?
 

Offline Adseria

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2398 on: September 03, 2019, 01:08:40 AM »
Quote
1) You can no longer use the same maintenance facilities to support multiple ships, so you need far more maintenance facilities in general. For example, if you build a 20,000 ton ship, you also need 20,000 tons of extra maintenance facility capacity to support it.

Will there be a way to easily sum the tonnage of all ships (that need maintenance) in orbit of a colony? I've never been much good at maths, and it would be frustrating to get the numbers wrong and find that I don't have enough facilities to support all of my ships.

Also, it would be nice if there was a display showing a breakdown of maintenance capacity (amount currently available, amount under construction and total amount) at a colony.
 

Offline Father Tim

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2399 on: September 03, 2019, 01:57:21 AM »
I apologize if this has been addressed already, but will Aurora 4x address the civilian organization of empires as well as the military?

Can you have a federal presidential system with, say, a President, Chief of Staff, Attorney General and all their secretaries and deputy secretaries that you can customize to your hearts content like your military OoB?

What's stopping you from doing this now?  What (mechanical) game effect is such a system supposed to have?