Author Topic: C# Aurora Changes Discussion  (Read 441786 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Steve Walmsley

  • Moderator
  • Star Marshal
  • *****
  • S
  • Posts: 11649
  • Thanked: 20349 times
Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2400 on: September 03, 2019, 03:20:56 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.

Each colony shows maintenance capacity and tonnage being maintained.
 
The following users thanked this post: SpikeTheHobbitMage

Offline Doren

  • Sub-Lieutenant
  • ******
  • D
  • Posts: 137
  • Thanked: 34 times
Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2401 on: September 05, 2019, 01:30:20 AM »
Each colony shows maintenance capacity and tonnage being maintained.
Could we also get tonnage data of a task group to task groups view so that we could easily see required additional tonnage if we were to move the task group to another location?
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

  • Moderator
  • Star Marshal
  • *****
  • S
  • Posts: 11649
  • Thanked: 20349 times
Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2402 on: September 05, 2019, 03:30:31 AM »
Each colony shows maintenance capacity and tonnage being maintained.
Could we also get tonnage data of a task group to task groups view so that we could easily see required additional tonnage if we were to move the task group to another location?

Already shown in fleet data :)
 
The following users thanked this post: Doren, punchkid

Iranon

  • Guest
Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2403 on: September 12, 2019, 12:06:02 PM »
I have some concerns about the changes to final fire. Short-range beam defences are dirt cheap. In my opinion, giving them the highest priority to become immune to any likely missile threat is the easiest approach as it is. Their current weaknesses are point blank missile fire that bypasses defences (I believe the AI doesn't do this?), and being limited by fire controls against highly dispersed volleys, which favour AMMs. It seems both of these are going away.


Is this on the radar? Whether it's a problem may also be affected by things other than combat mechanics - e.g. the way the AI designs ships and missiles.
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

  • Admiral of the Fleet
  • ***********
  • J
  • Posts: 2822
  • Thanked: 673 times
Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2404 on: September 12, 2019, 02:24:07 PM »
I have some concerns about the changes to final fire. Short-range beam defences are dirt cheap. In my opinion, giving them the highest priority to become immune to any likely missile threat is the easiest approach as it is. Their current weaknesses are point blank missile fire that bypasses defences (I believe the AI doesn't do this?), and being limited by fire controls against highly dispersed volleys, which favour AMMs. It seems both of these are going away.


Is this on the radar? Whether it's a problem may also be affected by things other than combat mechanics - e.g. the way the AI designs ships and missiles.

They still take up space and you no longer get free maintenance from unlimited maintenance stations if you are under a certain size. This means that having lots of relatively large but cheap PD will be heavy on your maintenance infrastructure.
 

Offline SevenOfCarina

  • Lieutenant
  • *******
  • Posts: 170
  • Thanked: 95 times
Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2405 on: September 13, 2019, 11:46:23 AM »
They still take up space and you no longer get free maintenance from unlimited maintenance stations if you are under a certain size. This means that having lots of relatively large but cheap PD will be heavy on your maintenance infrastructure.

Except that isn't really a concern because railgun stations are so cheap that you can easily afford to give them 20+ years of maintenance life and just scrap them when the time runs out. As it stands, railguns are hilariously good at beam point-defence and dominate over the other options available at low tech level. Even worse, the lowest tech railguns are the most effective, and better tech doesn't really do anything for railgun PD.

I'd suggest that one way to balance this is to make the accuracy of kinetic weapons dependent on the projectile velocity. It sort of makes sense in a way - faster projectiles leave less time for dodging - and the remaining weapons are either lightspeed (lasers, microwaves), or really close (particle weapons, mesons, plasma?). There's already a tech for this too! Gauss cannons should probably not be affected though.

I also second the motion to make turret speed additive, but the base tracking speed should probably be retained at 100% of ship speed. I also think that fighters shouldn't be allowed to have turreted weapons - they already get 4x BFC tracking speed for free, giving them turrets would allow them to go up to 16x tracking speed, which seems unfair.
« Last Edit: September 13, 2019, 11:52:11 AM by SevenOfCarina »
 

Offline papent

  • Lieutenant
  • *******
  • Posts: 163
  • Thanked: 45 times
  • Off We Go Into The Wild Blue Yonder
Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2406 on: September 13, 2019, 01:34:24 PM »
They still take up space and you no longer get free maintenance from unlimited maintenance stations if you are under a certain size. This means that having lots of relatively large but cheap PD will be heavy on your maintenance infrastructure.
Except that isn't really a concern because railgun stations are so cheap that you can easily afford to give them 20+ years of maintenance life and just scrap them when the time runs out. As it stands, railguns are hilariously good at beam point-defence and dominate over the other options available at low tech level. Even worse, the lowest tech railguns are the most effective, and better tech doesn't really do anything for railgun PD.

you think even with the new weapon failure chances, this will still be the case?

I also second the motion to make turret speed additive, but the base tracking speed should probably be retained at 100% of ship speed. I also think that fighters shouldn't be allowed to have turreted weapons - they already get 4x BFC tracking speed for free, giving them turrets would allow them to go up to 16x tracking speed, which seems unfair.

and with fighters even in Steve's Test game he's having a lot failures on fighter weaponry, which I think will limit the use of fighter interceptors (Beam or Missile) for use in prolonged battles or heavy combat as they will suffer from weapon failures not to mention combat losses, so why limit their effectiveness more with a limit on use of turrets.
In my humble opinion anything that could be considered a balance issue is a moot point unless the AI utilize it against you because otherwise it's an exploit you willing choose to use to game the system. 
Rule 0 Is effect : "The SM is always right/ What SM Says Goes."
 

Iranon

  • Guest
Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2407 on: September 14, 2019, 04:10:28 AM »
Weapon failure is highly problematic in itself, without reworking a few other things.
A low-tech railgun costs almost nothing, weapon failure is irrelevant. A full-size quad Gauss turret may not even be worth firing against an individual small missile, better to tank the hit.
A high-tech laser may not be worth firing at the end of its range, causing more damage to the firing ship on average than to the opponent... but 10 capacitor-1 lasers instead of one capacitor-10 laser incur 10% of the firing costs for a given number of shots.

Cheap and bulky will be harder to maintain, but one could simply not maintain those ships. Give them a long mission life, use up and scrap/salvage.
I hope I'm wrong, but many new mechanics scream for crude and sometimes unintuitive solutions to a given challenge, that ignore a great deal of the complexity. The current ruleset seems more robust. While I enjoy poking the mechanics with a sharp stick and it opens up interesting niches... I currently don't feel punished for "playing as intended", which I think is very important. I hope we won't lose depth despite adding complexity.
 

Offline Rich.h

  • Captain
  • **********
  • R
  • Posts: 555
  • Thanked: 55 times
Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2408 on: September 14, 2019, 09:37:33 AM »
So the new MSP mineral changes are a much welcome one, but it made me wonder if it is possible to reduce this aspect of micro management a little more. Does Aurora C# allow for setting a minimum/maximum/range for mineral storage that will allow for the following to take place?

1. You decide how much of a set mineral you want on a colony
2. Allocate a frieghter to work as a conditional order ship (with the conditional being to check mineral amounts)
3. The freighter now checks on all the required minerals based on your settings and auto fills from a specified other colony.
 

Offline Bremen

  • Commodore
  • **********
  • B
  • Posts: 743
  • Thanked: 150 times
Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2409 on: September 14, 2019, 12:10:30 PM »
If it were me I'd probably have the maintenance providers and the MSP manufacturers be separate (or just built by construction factories like ship parts), so you could just ship MSP around, as one resource is even easier than three. But as long as maintenance facilities do both then I agree the mineral change is for the best.
« Last Edit: September 14, 2019, 04:49:07 PM by Bremen »
 

Offline Titanian

  • Sub-Lieutenant
  • ******
  • T
  • Posts: 105
  • Thanked: 20 times
Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2410 on: September 14, 2019, 04:25:39 PM »
Weapon failure is highly problematic in itself, without reworking a few other things.
A low-tech railgun costs almost nothing, weapon failure is irrelevant. A full-size quad Gauss turret may not even be worth firing against an individual small missile, better to tank the hit.
A high-tech laser may not be worth firing at the end of its range, causing more damage to the firing ship on average than to the opponent... but 10 capacitor-1 lasers instead of one capacitor-10 laser incur 10% of the firing costs for a given number of shots.
One of the reasons for the failure mechanic is to prevent extreme kiting. Low-tech railguns will never be able to kite anything, so this is ok in my opinion.
The lasers are also fine: 10 lasers require 10 times the space and thus 10 times the number of ships to mount the same weapon strength, which is a lot more production cost.
The gauss turret - I guess we will have to see how severe it becomes. Remember though that salvo sizes are not a problem for this anymore, so this only occurs if there really is just one missile approaching, or it is the only missile left of a larger salvo after other weapons have fired.
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

  • Admiral of the Fleet
  • ***********
  • J
  • Posts: 2822
  • Thanked: 673 times
Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2411 on: September 15, 2019, 01:37:52 PM »
They still take up space and you no longer get free maintenance from unlimited maintenance stations if you are under a certain size. This means that having lots of relatively large but cheap PD will be heavy on your maintenance infrastructure.

Except that isn't really a concern because railgun stations are so cheap that you can easily afford to give them 20+ years of maintenance life and just scrap them when the time runs out. As it stands, railguns are hilariously good at beam point-defence and dominate over the other options available at low tech level. Even worse, the lowest tech railguns are the most effective, and better tech doesn't really do anything for railgun PD.

One problem here also is that your stations will put strain on the maintenance location even if they have extreme long life or you will have to place them away from that maintenance point which will be a problem unless you are at a fixed point in space... at least it is irritating micromanagement.

It also is against the spirit of the game so you probably should just NOT do it. There are many mechanics in the game that can be GAMED... this is primarily a single player game where you can do whatever you feel is OK.

If you want to go against the spirit of the games mechanics just to get a benefit I don't think Aurora is a good game, there are quite a few loopholes and ways to sort of Game the system.

One of the main problem I have with cost of resources is primarily a gaming issue. Games tend to make more advance technology cost more in resources while in reality this rarely is the case. The cost are generally in development and prototyping, once something are put in to large scale production cost always goes down to roughly the same values as older similar technologies. Sure, high tech equipment tend to make things more expensive and complicated but that is more in man ours and logistical costs, but in time even those things tend to go down in costs. In general a tank 50 years ago was as expensive as a similar tank today to actually produce after say 500 were built.

There also are a reason why there is a very strong focus today on modularity in almost all modern military platforms.

I wish games simulated this better where it is the research and development that is costly but an old ship are still going to cost almost as much to build in terms of resources as a new one.
« Last Edit: September 15, 2019, 01:45:26 PM by Jorgen_CAB »
 

Offline SevenOfCarina

  • Lieutenant
  • *******
  • Posts: 170
  • Thanked: 95 times
Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2412 on: September 15, 2019, 02:51:49 PM »
One problem here also is that your stations will put strain on the maintenance location even if they have extreme long life or you will have to place them away from that maintenance point which will be a problem unless you are at a fixed point in space... at least it is irritating micromanagement.

It also is against the spirit of the game so you probably should just NOT do it. There are many mechanics in the game that can be GAMED... this is primarily a single player game where you can do whatever you feel is OK.

If you want to go against the spirit of the games mechanics just to get a benefit I don't think Aurora is a good game, there are quite a few loopholes and ways to sort of Game the system.


I'm pretty sure the 'move to x Mm orbit' entirely alleviates that issue.

And I disagree. This isn't something to be 'gamed', unless long deployment times are somehow an exploit; it's a clear balance issue that needs to be fixed.
 

Offline papent

  • Lieutenant
  • *******
  • Posts: 163
  • Thanked: 45 times
  • Off We Go Into The Wild Blue Yonder
Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2413 on: September 15, 2019, 04:14:31 PM »
I think what Jorgen_CAB is stating is that a balance issue is only a balance issue if it is exploited/used and as this game is built for single-player, with an AI that is not designed to exploit such things.
In my humble opinion anything that could be considered a balance issue is a moot point unless the AI utilize it against you because otherwise it's an exploit you willing choose to use to game the system.
After all this game developed from an aid for a tabletop game and rule 0 The SM is always right. is still in effect.


One of the main problem I have with cost of resources is primarily a gaming issue. Games tend to make more advance technology cost more in resources while in reality this rarely is the case. The cost are generally in development and prototyping, once something are put in to large scale production cost always goes down to roughly the same values as older similar technologies. Sure, high tech equipment tend to make things more expensive and complicated but that is more in man ours and logistical costs, but in time even those things tend to go down in costs. In general a tank 50 years ago was as expensive as a similar tank today to actually produce after say 500 were built.

There also are a reason why there is a very strong focus today on modularity in almost all modern military platforms.

I wish games simulated this better where it is the research and development that is costly but an old ship are still going to cost almost as much to build in terms of resources as a new one.

That would be pretty cool to see like a production bonus for continuing to build the same design at a shipyard it starts expensive but as you reach serial production the resource costs and production time decrease to show efficiency of manufacture and the progress from experimental to staple of the fleet? but on the other hand, would it handicap the AI? as they are suppose to switch designs more often in this upcoming version, i believe.
In my humble opinion anything that could be considered a balance issue is a moot point unless the AI utilize it against you because otherwise it's an exploit you willing choose to use to game the system. 
Rule 0 Is effect : "The SM is always right/ What SM Says Goes."
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

  • Admiral of the Fleet
  • ***********
  • J
  • Posts: 2822
  • Thanked: 673 times
Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #2414 on: September 15, 2019, 04:31:23 PM »
One problem here also is that your stations will put strain on the maintenance location even if they have extreme long life or you will have to place them away from that maintenance point which will be a problem unless you are at a fixed point in space... at least it is irritating micromanagement.

It also is against the spirit of the game so you probably should just NOT do it. There are many mechanics in the game that can be GAMED... this is primarily a single player game where you can do whatever you feel is OK.

If you want to go against the spirit of the games mechanics just to get a benefit I don't think Aurora is a good game, there are quite a few loopholes and ways to sort of Game the system.


I'm pretty sure the 'move to x Mm orbit' entirely alleviates that issue.

And I disagree. This isn't something to be 'gamed', unless long deployment times are somehow an exploit; it's a clear balance issue that needs to be fixed.

Extreme long time deployments is in my opinion an exploit if you are playing in a human society... The size you need for extreme voyage is not realistic especially for really small ships. The larger and more crew you have on a ship the more you might increase it but it still become very unrealistic after a few years anyway unless the ship is on some special mission type thing.

Extreme maintenance periods are also very gamey and unrealistic for something as complex as a space ship, especially if operated by actual living beings that are not perfect.

So yes, in my opinion it is an exploit for the sake of exploiting it...

In my opinion it works unless you intentionally exploit it which you really don't need to do.

On the other hand I do agree with you on the point that more modern weapons system should be more efficient at PD. The range of a weapon certainly would be a huge benefit to a PD weapon for example as are the speed of the projectile fired on a Gauss weapon for example.
« Last Edit: September 15, 2019, 05:18:04 PM by Jorgen_CAB »