What the heck?

[plasticpanzers (OP)]

Question: does Aurora 'cheat' when designing NPR ships?  I as this question as I am 43 years into current game and have some
what i thought after a few dozen games worth of design were good survey ships of 17000 tons that could multi-task.  I run
into this NPR in several systems and their ships (and it appears all NPR ships) move at 2-5 times whatever speed my engine
design is (magneto plasma right now).   1 single 9050 ton enemy NPR ship that appears to be able to jump also can move
at 4000kps, have huge armor and shrug off 12 hits by power 12 missiles, and launch over 100 power 13 missiles that my PD
cannot even seem to see (and i do have PD missile fire control and AMMs).   it does not seem worthwhile to even arm my survey
ships as they consistantly get slaughtered by whatever NPR they run into nomatter how 'stealthy' I make them.   This type of
combat seems consistant in every game I have run into hostile vessels.   3000 ton ships traveling at 12000 kps and ripping ships
to bits with energy weapons and these super ships of 9050 tons.   Gets frustrating when you know your using the best tech you
can find (have 40 research shops working).   My missiles consistantly hit and barely slow them down.

Also auto fire never seems to work.   unless i play at 5 secs per turn to watch what happens the only weapon on my ships to fire
at all unless i control them are the CIWS.  NO autofire marked ship ever fires a missile or beam weapon in anger.  It appears you
have to manually assign every target even if there is only one or your ship will not defend itself.

It would be nice to have an autopause when your VERY first contact of a hostile or new race happens.   if you running fat and happy
into what appears an empty system and don't run the game at superslow speeds of 5 second micro pulses you can find a TF blitzed
and gone if you hit even the 1 day button.

Also it appears to me enemy vessels get knowledge of my weapons ranges when i get nothing on them but sometimes size and usually
just speed.  They stay just outside missile range like they know how far i can shoot which appears pretty darn cool for them at least.

just my grumbles....

[Bremen]

4000 km/s isn't fast at all for a magneto plasma tech warship. You might want to look at some player ship designs in that forum. Strength 12 missiles only penetrate 3 armor layers, so you may have just gotten unlucky.

I don't have any experience with using autofire, but the game should auto-pause whenever you detect a new or hostile ship.

[MarcAFK]

NPRs do "cheat" in a few major ways;
1) research doesn't cost them any money, this is because it was found they frequently went bankrupt which crippled their research making them useless in fights.
2) their ships don't use fuel. This is a fairly major issue but it's simplified this way to prevent bugs and more lag which would occur if AIs  needed complex fuel logistics.
However AIs don't really exploit this, their engine and ship designs are fairly logical and similar to what players might use, because ships have limitless range they could just choose to use maximum multiplier engines on everything but they don't. You might find your ships are slow because you aren't using sufficient tonnage of engines, or very high multiplier. By ion I usually have ships doing 3000 km/s standard with 20-30 % engine and 1-1.25 multiplier. Fuel use is high but manageable.
It's interesting you mention them staying outside your missile range, I've never seen this happen, maybe that's their own missile range they're holding at?
They definitely don't have perfect intel on your ships as I have consistently slaughtered AI ships with inferior designs using various tactics.
Survey ships tend to get lost in first contact, it happens to everyone but the best way of avoiding it is making surveyors small therefore less detectable, and putting good passive sensors on them. Think size 5-10 thermals on a 4000 ton ship.
Point defence can be tricky, undersized missile sensors are basically useless, you need minimum size 6 detection range of 5 times the speed of the enemy missile. If you're travelling towards the enemy ship you'll need to add 5 times your own speed too. The game should pause once enemy missiles are detected. If you have a good thermal equipped ship in every task group you'll detect missiles before they're even in range of your actives. Automatic defence can be very tricky to set up and I can never remember exactly how to do it on the forum, I'll run through it later when I get in a PC.
Once again aurora should auto pause when you find a new race or hostile contact, unless you're running with minimum increments which causes updates to continue.
Post some of your ship designs, Maybe they could be improved somewhat?

[DIT_grue]

Never hit the Auto Fire button: apparently that's the NPR logic, and produces weird results (at best) when players try to use it. (IIRC what I've seen said in the forums, of course: since I found that nugget before I ever played, I've never touched it myself.)

[CharonJr]

A 17kt ship moving at 4k will hardly ever be really stealthy.

And there does seem to be a problem with detecting the first missile strike in some engagements (happens to the NPRs as well). But it seems to be hard to fix since this has been happening for some time, but not in every engagement.

But AFAIK there are no cheats except for the research and fuel already mentioned here.

[MarcAFK]

NPRs don't have their actives on constantly, that's why you can surprise them with missiles.

[plasticpanzers (OP)]

It has been odd matching ships with the AI.   I cannot figure out how to get what apparently is on this 9000 ton hull
with any combination myself.   And at 4000 kps it did appear slower than some of the 8000-12000kps ships i have
run across but they also appear vastly overpowered for their sizes consistantly.  Once you take a jump drive off a
9000 ton hull there is not much left but to still move at 4000 kps and have 6 size 6 missile launchers as well as darn
good sensors make these still impressive opponents.  That it had level 3 armor and i hit it with about 120 points of
damage from 10 missiles shows alot of resilence on that size hull as well.   my missiles moved at over 21000 kps but
so did his tho just slightly slower.   As Wellington said I would not match 3 of my ships to 1 of theirs and have lost
8 ships to 3 at times with no apparent major damage to any enemy vessel even with repeated his on small ships.

This is why I questioned the AI on 'cheating', not true cheating, but using a math formula that favors the AI well over
the human player to offset the human ability to play and adapt.

That they don't use fuel is impressive as it explains how their ships can rip around solar systems with such abandon while
I have to make sure I have a tanker in reserve.   My current frigates run about 3900 or so kps while my heavy multitask
survey ships with alot of gear move only about 1200 with fuel stingy commercial drive and could never outrun salvos of
21000kps missiles anyhow.

Well TFNS Monitor just bit the bullet and I am not allowing the rest of the Survey TF Majestic (3 more of the class) go in
and help.   I sent for my for Ajax class frigates and will try them out against this 9000 ton mighty mouse and see how it
goes (probably 4 more wrecks to add to the system i suppose).

[plasticpanzers (OP)]

Well dumb me.   I forgot to take off the survey order on the last 3 survey crusiers and they blissfully sailed toward mighty mouse
who promptly got in a missile duel with all three other ones.   It appears mighty mouse has an infinite capacity quiver for its missiles
as i have counted 6 about every 30 seconds (good reload rate too) giving a total of about 200 missiles fired from a 9000 ton ship so far.
Also my first dead ship appeared to at least slow it from about 4000kps to 1800kps with 10 hits by 12 strength warhead hits and i just
got 10 more from the other ships (who are getting slapped dead one at a time anyhow) and now mighty mouse appears to have repaired
itself and is now up to about 3300kps despite the damage.   I rather get that the remaining 12 missiles in flight will do no damage either.
Rather wierd.

[GreatTuna]

If you're wondering how did NPR build this ship, make some dropships and capture it.

You are very wrong about speed. You need to dedicate only 25% of mass on engines with MPD to get 4kkm/s, and that's with power modifier 1x. That leaves 75% of mass for weapons and armor, more than enough to carry a lot of launchers and armor.

EDIT: wait, you're attacking missile cruisers with SURVEY SHIPS? Why do they have weapons at all?

[plasticpanzers (OP)]

My frigates (16000 tons) are 4000kps ships with (now) 4 launchers vs this little ship of 9000 tons with a missile capacity
of about 200 (shoots 6 per turn) at about 30 seconds per turn of 13 strength size 6 missiles, mine are strength 12 of size
9).   Finally killed the little bugger with about 26 of my strength 12 missles.   It slowed incrementally with hits and just
about continued firing to the end.   Since i am only 43 years into the game and not likely to send anything fragile like a
dropship carrier (who i have yet to even waste time on researching troops with my major ships getting killed so easy) so
its going to be awhile before i see what this is made of.   Evidently unlike the AI the player must balance economics with
military research even tho i have tech rushed for what i believe are good weapons with 40 labs toiling away.   Lasers or
beam weapons appear useless so far as they are knife weapons and missiles (so far) sweep the field.   I would expect to
get a bit further into the game before going to war after exploring just 3 systems so far (two with the hostile AI nation)
and have not even looked into the other two JPs in Sol yet!

With missiles that travel 20000 plus kps then a ship that goes 2000 or 4000 kps does not matter much.  Its what you can
defend against and what you can dish out.

TFNS Monitor appears a loss with all hands but Monarch and Magesty have lifepods that Maverick is picking up now after
finally bumping off that little SOB.   Now, if Maverick can survive picking up the survivors without getting killed as well it
goes back for a refit and to have 3 new sister ships built...

[GreatTuna]

You have got to be kidding me. 4 launchers? Pardon me, but your frigates are terrible. NPR-grade terrible! No wonder you get dismantled by NPRs.
Hear this:
1. Redesign your frigates, they'll be dead meat against everyone with few CIWS.
1. 1. You could post the design so we can see why there's only 4 launchers how it can be improved.
2. You need AMM ships, escorts and beam PD ships badly. If you don't build them, you will get killed over and over and over...
3. Beam weapons are not useless. They're very, very good if you know how to use them.
4. Speed does matter, faster ships are harder to hit. I had cruisers with 10.8kkm/s (with magneto-plasma drives, by the way) engage AMM battleships, and their AMMs had around 75-80% to-hit chance. That means 20% less damage.
4. 1. You also can catch up with enemy faster so you can tear them apart!
5. If you have troubles with economics (how?), colonize everything! And put wealth generating admins on your big colonies.

[Panopticon]

Tuna is being a bit on the harsh side, but they aren't wrong.

Put your ship designs up for critique if you aren't sure how to proceed yourself, but you are absolutely wrong about speed, speed is generally a better defense than armor.

Beam weapons are pretty good, and they can also help with AM work if you build your fire controls and sensors right.

And yeah, you need more ship types, an AMM armed escort would probably have gone a long way towards saving you some damage there, and CIWS, mass railguns, or turreted energy weapons would have helped a lot as well.

Mass isn't everything if you aren't doing the right things with it.

[plasticpanzers (OP)]

how fun.  actually i hit them with every single missile.   beam ships so far in my games die horribly despite extensive range research.
what level are you playing at?  i am only 43 years into the game and only 3 years into exploration so i can built more advanced ships.
i don't use game master to cheat to start with advance tech but start at the beginning with beginning techs.

read my lips.  2000kps or 4000kps vs 21300kps missile.   if i have a Barrett 50cal sniper rifle and your driving away in a Lamborghini
or a Subaru it will make little difference don't you think?  You may get one more blink in if your in the Lamborghini but its a waste of
money. 

If I go 3000-4000kps and some ship is zooming along at 8000kps i am still dead meat.   More so with high speed missiles.   More so if
the little buggers have 8 or so beam weapons in them and there are 30 at the same time.   I just removed the UV lasers from my Ajax
class to load 2 more missile launchers in as beam weapons don't seem overly effective at 30million kilometers.  They were turret mounted
and had the highest tech for speed I could get (320 tech level research for 40 labs) for both range and speed.

I am used to using computers to game with since the 8088 processor (I am 63) but never bothered to learn how the damn thing work so
posting ship designs is probably not going to happen but here is an example

Ajax Missile Frigate

3900 speed (magneto plasma drive), basic jump drive
4xlevel 9 launchers (took out the silly UV lasers)
2xlevel 1 AMM launchers
Nike-Ajax size 9 12point missiles 21,300kps 77MK range
Rimfire 1 point AMM 10000kps 2MK range
12 Gamma shields
Composite armor level 3
2 CIWS 16k tracking 4 hits per shot
ECM/ECCM level 1
Active/Thermal/EM sensors

Generally in a 1000 system game 43 years into deep space (its 2043 in my game) and 3 years into star exploration with 40 reserach centers
why am i fighting demon ships in 2 of the very first systems.   In a 4x game there is some buildup prior to the bloodbath and I should not
require Enterprise G class starships or Star Destroyers launching from the International Space Station.   Lighten up, I thought i was pretty
darn advanced for 3 years into interstellar exploration. 

read more, i am not having economic problems, i am doing just fine.  it appears the AI does not require economics (or a capacity limit for
ship magazines either...).   It just irks me that so early in the game into the first systems surrounding Sol when I have done everything
right: built up an ecomonic base, a strong research base, good tech (for so early in such a huge game) to run into AI ships that cheat to
win.

Now, obviously, I could learn how to cheat too and start the game with the Space Master and just have all the techs and leaders up front but
I thought i would do it the hard way which is play the game as a type of historical game and have some fun.   Being somewhat old but fairly
smart I know that I am doing the research just as fast as i can but i also know that using a marker to write a 24 on a 2 of clubs does not make
it a fair card game nor much fun.

[CharonJr]

It seems that your survey ships are like the Enterprise which is fine from a RP perspective, but hardly optimal.

Personally my survey craft are about 4000t and fairly fast and decent armored with good passive senors. They still get killed sometimes, but often they detect trouble and can run from it. And even if they cant less men and ressources are lost and can be used for dedicated warships.

[plasticpanzers (OP)]

The Ajax are my warships! lol!  The Pathfinders were 1000 tons larger with geo and gravity sensors and only 1 launcher each
due to size limitations.   The Pathfinders (the Maverick and such) were the ones getting slaughtered.   Even in groups of 4.
I just deleted the game and will try again later in the week.   Wife is complaining I spend too much time on the computer! lol!