Author Topic: Cockpit component and gunboats  (Read 6953 times)

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Offline SteveAlt

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« Reply #15 on: October 08, 2007, 02:41:25 PM »
Quote from: "Erik Luken"
Refuel/Reload Ordnance?
That one should be OK. I am going to try and leave the parasite as a normal part of the fleet but then exclude it when necessary (rather than the reverse). When a fleet refuels or reloads (or is refuelled or reloading by another fleet) then the parasites should be treated exactly the same as every other ship (I hope :))

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Jumps.
That's a good point. Normal jumps will be fine but combat transits will need looking at so that parasites do not count against the number of ships jumping.

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hmm... thinking about your edit #2. Maybe implement a launch readiness state. The closer the parasite is to that, the better chances of launching prior to mothership destruction.

Good idea. Perhaps this could be linked to the Abandon Ship button.

Steve
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by SteveAlt »
 

Offline SteveAlt

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« Reply #16 on: October 08, 2007, 02:43:39 PM »
Quote from: "wildfire142"
When the mothership reloads it magazines the parasites magazines are also reloaded from the colony etc as long as the right type of missile are availible.

That should happen as I have it setup now. With regard to reloading and refuelling from the mothership stores when a parasite lands, I think I will set that to happen automatically.

Steve
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by SteveAlt »
 

Offline SteveAlt

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« Reply #17 on: October 08, 2007, 02:57:33 PM »
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
That's a good point. Normal jumps will be fine but combat transits will need looking at so that parasites do not count against the number of ships jumping.

Parasites now jump with their mothership and do not count against the number of ships for combat transits. They also refuel automatically on landing.

Steve
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by SteveAlt »
 

Offline sloanjh (OP)

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« Reply #18 on: October 08, 2007, 03:07:41 PM »
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
I just reread this before sending and it sounds a little like I am being critical. Its not intended that way but I need to try and get my concerns across so please don't take offence at anything here. It may be I have just misunderstood.

Not a problem - no offence.  I (think I) understand your concerns.
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The problem is that you are introducing a completely new concept that has a lot of knock on implications. For example, why can't I have a ship that only uses the half size lasers and reactors but full size everything else? Presumably that would give me a lot more firepower for minimal basing requirements.
Because a few days out from base on the deployment, the lasers and reactors would be broken with no way to fix them.  The idea is that the tonnage associated with a particular weapons system on a blue-water combatant is a lot more than just the actual weapon - it's all the infrastructure (and people) to fix the thing when it breaks down 10 days out.  Consider a Sparrow launcher: when it's part of a point-defense installation on a ship, if it breaks the person who fixes it is part of the crew, with tools that are stored on-board.  When it's a launch rail on a fighter, the person who fixes it lives at the airbase and uses tools from a shed on-base.  This was the idea about having a rapid maintenance clock - there's a short-time maintenance cycle that is going on all the time that's completely abstracted away in Aurora.  If the clock were set up to run 10x or 100x as fast as normal from the point of view of breakage (but not spare consumption) that would prevent the sort of laser scenario you're worried about.
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The question I have to ask for plausibility purposes is how? Some things like engineering could presumably be offloaded in return for a high failure rate but a half size magazine isn't going to hold as much as a full size one and I am not sure that having half size but fully capable shields, lasers or sensors because some of their normal shipboard functionality would be on board a different ship would be realistic. For systems like fire control or missile launchers there are already rules for making them larger or smaller so any new rule would be in contradiction to that rule.
The systems I was mainly concerned about were big hunks of metal, like power plant, laser/torpedo/etc. mounts, engines, etc.  I was about to say "the smaller missile launchers fit in with this idea" but after some thought decided that from a consistency point of view the GB idea would still apply (although maybe with less of a size reduction) - there's got to be tonnage on a warship associated with maintaining the missile launchers etc., as opposed to the tonnage of the launchers themselves.

Note that the GB size "reduction" (actually a tonnage division into two parts) would be on top of any other size reduction/growth mechanisms.

I'm pretty flexible on the point of missiles, however - if you thought it didn't make sense or put in too much imbalance I could live with systems like missiles, magazine, fire control, sensors, etc not having GB variants and requiring full-size installations.

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You could even have a line of "GB size reduction" tech e.g. 15%, 30%, 40%, 50% offload so that the advantages of having GB wouldn't all accrue from day 1.
Unfortunately this would also lead to requests for normal ship-systems to shrink over time. If you can make gunboat systems smaller over time through technology, why can't you make ship systems smaller over time through technology?
Aaaah - but you're not shrinking the systems; you're just getting more efficient at off-loading the relevant bits.  The total (GB+Base) tonnage, crew, and cost of the system stays the same (and might even go up if you've got a penalty for offloaded bits).  I'm not married to this part of the idea, I just thought it might be helpful from a gameplay point of view.

If we didn't have the "GB offload ratio" tech (a much less loaded name than "size reduction"), then that also allows changing the size ratio to shift GB balance, i.e. if 50% is too drastic then you might use 25%

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I am concerned that this would create half size ships with full-size capabilities with a hand-wavium that there is a tender involved. Using these rules we would see a lot of 10,000 ton gunboats that would be superior to 'normal' ships and in fact become the standard. I understand the idea but I am concerned it isn't realsitic within the game mechanics. I am happy to try and create realistic smaller ships but they will have to abide by the same game principles as larger ships. It's back to the super-fighter-lasers of Starfire.

When something is made smaller, there has to be some significant penalty to the actual system. The new smaller missile launchers are very slow firing and the new 'gunboat' engine discussed earlier in this thread has a restriction of one per ship plus massive fuel use and high explosion probability. Smaller items have to be useful for a particular situation and not generally useful in all situations

Would the gunboat concept I have laid out in this thread not meet your requrements for a small, fast attack craft anyway? I am looking at ways to hold them on board motherships at the moment.

Like I said, I think I understand where you're coming from.  I think the part you might be underestimating (or I may be overestimating :-) ).

Like I said - you're the one who's writing the game; all I'm doing is advocating.

Thanks Steve,
John
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by sloanjh »
 

Offline sloanjh (OP)

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« Reply #19 on: October 08, 2007, 03:11:38 PM »
Reading the thread updates on how far you've gotten with parasites... COOL!!!!!!!!!!

John
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by sloanjh »
 

Offline SteveAlt

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« Reply #20 on: October 08, 2007, 03:54:23 PM »
Quote from: "sloanjh"
Quote from: "SteveW"
The problem is that you are introducing a completely new concept that has a lot of knock on implications. For example, why can't I have a ship that only uses the half size lasers and reactors but full size everything else? Presumably that would give me a lot more firepower for minimal basing requirements.
Because a few days out from base on the deployment, the lasers and reactors would be broken with no way to fix them.  The idea is that the tonnage associated with a particular weapons system on a blue-water combatant is a lot more than just the actual weapon - it's all the infrastructure (and people) to fix the thing when it breaks down 10 days out.  Consider a Sparrow launcher: when it's part of a point-defense installation on a ship, if it breaks the person who fixes it is part of the crew, with tools that are stored on-board.  When it's a launch rail on a fighter, the person who fixes it lives at the airbase and uses tools from a shed on-base.  This was the idea about having a rapid maintenance clock - there's a short-time maintenance cycle that is going on all the time that's completely abstracted away in Aurora.  If the clock were set up to run 10x or 100x as fast as normal from the point of view of breakage (but not spare consumption) that would prevent the sort of laser scenario you're worried about.
OK, that makes a lot more sense now. If the maintenance clock is effectively speed up to a very high speed, then I can see that for certain systems you could leave out part of the support mechanism. I think the tricky bit might be deciding which systems could be 'shrunk' in this way. The other problem is that maintenance checks only take place every 5-days, although I guess I could add a GB-only maintenance check during every movement increment.

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Unfortunately this would also lead to requests for normal ship-systems to shrink over time. If you can make gunboat systems smaller over time through technology, why can't you make ship systems smaller over time through technology?
Aaaah - but you're not shrinking the systems; you're just getting more efficient at off-loading the relevant bits.  The total (GB+Base) tonnage, crew, and cost of the system stays the same (and might even go up if you've got a penalty for offloaded bits).  I'm not married to this part of the idea, I just thought it might be helpful from a gameplay point of view.
OK, that sounds more reasonable. I am still not sold on the general idea but I do understand the mechanics behind what you were suggesting a lot better now
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Would the gunboat concept I have laid out in this thread not meet your requrements for a small, fast attack craft anyway? I am looking at ways to hold them on board motherships at the moment.
Like I said, I think I understand where you're coming from.  I think the part you might be underestimating (or I may be overestimating :-) ).
I think the support tonnage sounds less hand-wavium now I understand the concept a little better. I know the single engine is hand-wavium but its consistent hand-wavium within the way the rest of the game works :)

Steve
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by SteveAlt »
 

Offline SteveAlt

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« Reply #21 on: October 08, 2007, 04:38:29 PM »
I have added a Parasite Hangar to the game. I am open to a better name if someone can think of one.
The initial stats are Size 24 (1200 tons), Cost 100, Capacity 1000 tons, Crew 25. Dev Cost 10,000

This is a lot more basic than a fighter hangar as it is intended to carry fully capable ships. Essentially the hangar provides a docking space, fuel lines and a transfer mechanism for ammunition (if required). I might increase its size a little, depending on play testing. This ship has five Parasite Hangars and could carry six of the Kresta class Gunboats shown above.

Code: [Select]
Borodino class Mothership    12750 tons     745 Crew     1460 BP      TCS 255  TH 900  EM 0
3529 km/s     Armour 1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 15/15/15/0/0     Damage Control 0-0     PPV 0
Parasite Capacity 5000 tons     Replacement Parts 10    

Sorokin S8 Ion Drive (15)    Power 60    Efficiency 0.80    Signature 60    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 500,000 Litres    Range 211.7 billion km   (694 days at full power)

Thermal Sensor TH3-15 (1)     Sensitivity 15     Detect Signature 100: 1.5m km
Active Sensor MR20000-R40 (1)     GPS 2000     Range 20.0m km    Resolution 40
Grav Pulse Detection Sensor GPD3-15 (1)     Sensitivity 15     Detect Strength 100: 1.5m km
EM Detection Sensor EM3-15 (1)     Sensitivity 15     Detect Strength 100: 1.5m km

Steve
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by SteveAlt »
 

Offline sloanjh (OP)

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« Reply #22 on: October 08, 2007, 05:59:55 PM »
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
This is what I am concerned about. A new system having such a huge effect on the game that is becomes mandatory or causes a ripple effect throughout the game system. It really is unknown territory and we wouldn't know how big the impact would be until I have changed a lot of code. I created the modified system using existing mechanics within a couple of hours and I think its safe to assume it will add an extra dimension to the game without it becoming mandatory to deploy small, fast ships. Although I think they will add to system defences and possibly be a useful offensive tool when deployed from motherships.
Yep - I understand completely.  I'm just happy you put the modified system in - I think it goes a long way towards addressing the "I want fighters that can attack with beam weapons" complaint.  It's a perfectly valid decision not to want to go the high-risk route.  Nothing you've coded up with the parasites precludes it if you decide to go that way later, BTW.

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I am not sure I like the idea of potentially destroyer sized ships or above with such a restriction on range but that is a personal opinion not a game mechanic problem. However, I think this would lead to a new type of ship within the game with rules especially for that type. You would have Ship, PDC and Gunboat rules, which would lead to a lot of complexities. What I am trying to do at the moment is create a fast patrol type ship which will operate within existing, tested, mechanics.
Like you, I think it would be silly (and probably sub-optimal) to build a CA or BB with an endurance of a day.  One of the reasons I liked the "battlerider" idea (new name, given that GB/parasites are taken by what you coded up) is that the game wouldn't prevent that design choice.

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As for the GB concept you laid out, yes, it sounds like they'll make small fast attack craft.  The only thing I'm worried about is endurance - even sucking fuel down at 10x, I fear they'll be able to go out on 1-month sorties.
I think that's likely because you could add more fuel than the Kresta model I used above. Given the size of Aurora systems though, a 1 month sortie may not be a bad thing. Its means they could attack intruders at some distance from the planet, or launch raids into a system while the motherships remain in the outer system.
Good point.  OTOH, I also like the idea of forcing the mothership to come in within detection range rather than stooging around the outer system.

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I think we probably have a different idea in mind for these small craft. You are probably thinking Starfire gunboats while I am thinking about Soviet missile boats, like an Osa or even Soviet Corvettes, like a Grisha or Tarantul, and Honorverse LACs.
Actually, I was literally thinking in terms of carrier aircraft, at least at first - I wanted a "reasonable" way for a group of (potentially) 1-man, short range ships with heavy basing requirements to carry a decent (non-missile) offensive punch and be survivable at beam range.  I agree that the end result is like Osa or Pegasus (or was the class Hercules?) or WWII PT boats.  If it turns out that they're actually not very survivable, then a potential tweak is still possible - the "agility" stuff that would make fast ships even harder to hit.


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I think the support tonnage sounds less hand-wavium now I understand the concept a little better. I know the single engine is hand-wavium but its consistent hand-wavium within the way the rest of the game works :-)

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Like I said - you're the one who's writing the game; all I'm doing is advocating.
I very much appreciate the thought that goes into the ideas even if I don't always agree with everything :).

I'm just happy you jumped on the idea (albeit modifed) so quickly and with such enthusiasm - I hoped it was something people would go "ooh" over.

Thanks,
John
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by sloanjh »
 

Offline Þórgrímr

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« Reply #23 on: October 08, 2007, 06:29:09 PM »
Just a li'l blurb on the AGP's, PT Tenders, of WW2.  :D

In forward areas, Tenders served as a mothership for PT's, supplying gasoline, supplies and equipment. They also supplied torpedoes, ammunitions as well as basic engineering and electrical repair work. Tenders also served as a mess, furnished fresh water showers and generated additional electrical supply for moored boats. In later war years the Tenders became more sophisticated with complete overhaul shops, A-frames and/or towed floating dry-docks.




Cheers,
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Þórgrímr »
Sic vis pacem, para bellum
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Offline SteveAlt

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« Reply #24 on: October 08, 2007, 07:02:31 PM »
To avoid getting over-complicated with the bridge idea, I have modified the design code so that ships of 1000 tons or less, don't need a bridge.

Steve
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by SteveAlt »
 

Offline SteveAlt

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« Reply #25 on: October 08, 2007, 07:10:28 PM »
[quote="
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by SteveAlt »
 

Offline SteveAlt

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« Reply #26 on: October 08, 2007, 08:11:56 PM »
Parasite Launch and Recover Rules

Parasites are now launching and landing from Motherships. To keep this as simple as possible, the launching and landing are done using buttons on the Fleet Moves and/or Ship Windows. I'll add some orders later when I see how things are working out.

1) Each ship can have one Assigned Mothership, which is set using a dropdown on the Ship window. If you tell this ship to Land it will attempt to land on its Assigned Mothership if it is in the same location. On landing, it will automatically refuel from the mothership's fuel capacity. While a ship is docked, it can be assigned a different mothership so that next time it launches, it will land on a different ship. The Ship window shows the Actual Mothership (if it is docked) and the Assigned Mothership (which is the ship on which it will attempt to land if given a land command). These may be different.

2) Motherships have a list of docked parasite ships on the Ship window. On the Fleet Moves window, all ships in the fleet are shown, whether currently docked or not. However, docked ships will have the mothership in parantheses after their name)

3) The Ship window has two buttons for parasite ships, Launch and Land, which will be enabled or disabled depending on the current status. If Launch is pressed, the parasite ship launches and remains part of the same fleet as the mothership. If Land is pressed and the Assigned Mothership is in the same location, the parasite ship will dock and become part of its mothership's fleet.

4) The Ship window has two buttons for motherships, Release and Recover. If Release is pressed, all docked parasite ships will be launched and remain part of the same fleet as the mothership. If Recover is pressed all parasite ships in the same location, assigned to the current mothership will dock and become part of the mothership's fleet. If individual ships need to be launched or recovered, use the ship window for the Parasite. If all parasites are to be launched or recovered, use the ship window for the Mothership

5) The Fleet Moves window has two buttons relating to Parasites, Launch Para and Recover Para. If Launch Para is pressed, all docked parasite ships within the fleet will be launched and will remain part of the same fleet as their motherships. If Recover Para is pressed, all parasite ships in the same location that are assigned to a mothership within the fleet will dock and become part of their motherships' fleet.

In all cases, ships will only dock if sufficient space is available on the mothership.

All the above is coded and working.

Steve
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by SteveAlt »
 

Offline Erik L

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« Reply #27 on: October 08, 2007, 08:35:59 PM »
One request on the launch bit. Stick the launched parasites into a separate TF.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Erik Luken »
 

Offline MWadwell

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« Reply #28 on: October 08, 2007, 09:24:02 PM »
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
1) Each ship can have one Assigned Mothership, which is set using a dropdown on the Ship window. If you tell this ship to Land it will attempt to land on its Assigned Mothership if it is in the same location. On landing, it will automatically refuel from the mothership's fuel capacity. While a ship is docked, it can be assigned a different mothership so that next time it launches, it will land on a different ship. The Ship window shows the Actual Mothership (if it is docked) and the Assigned Mothership (which is the ship on which it will attempt to land if given a land command). These may be different.


What might be an idea, is to allow the mothership to be changed if the parasite has been launched - otherwise you could end up with the situation where a launched parasite cannot land, as it's assigned motherships has been destroyed (and the parasite cannot be re-assigned a new mothership).
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by MWadwell »
Later,
Matt
 

Offline Michael Sandy

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« Reply #29 on: October 09, 2007, 01:28:13 AM »
For keeping the engines out of larger ships, how about this:

Because these engines are very precisely tuned, there is energy expensive interference the more of them you have.

And it goes up proportional to the number of engine interactions you can have.  If E is the number of engines, then multiply fuel consumption rate by 1.01 x E!.  That is, E factorial.

So 1 engine, not a problem.  +1% fuel consumption.  3 engines, +6%.
6 engines is 6*5*4*3*2 interaction issues, or +720% fuel consumption.

The weapons these things are armed with will have to be pretty short ranged, because you won't be able to fit a tracking system for long ranged stuff.

Also, perhaps they shouldn't have armor rating 1, either for the mass required or the protection level.

Maybe have some kind of energy storage system instead of a generator so that it can fire a number of full power shots and then have to wait a while before firing again.  So if you need a size 2 generator to keep up with a given energy load, perhaps a size 1 energy bank could power 60 seconds worth of fire.

Unfortunately, that gets in to energy budget stuff and complaints from big ship owners about unfired weapons still drawing power, etc...
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Michael Sandy »