Author Topic: C# Aurora Changes Discussion  (Read 441984 times)

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Offline Bremen

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1365 on: January 15, 2018, 11:30:01 PM »
I normally just glass enemy planets with missiles (which you can still do, to be clear). Ironically the ground combat changes are making me excited to actually go all starship troopers on the aliens instead.
 

Offline ChildServices

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1366 on: January 16, 2018, 01:12:23 AM »
I would like there to be a mothballing mechanic, so that I can reserve old ships instead of just gradually phasing everything out via refits/scrapping like I do now when there's a new generation of ships. I guess the ships would become totally immobile at the maintenance location they were decommissioned at, and would unload all of their fuel, ordnance, and MSP. In exchange they'd cost either nothing or very little to maintain, maybe even only counting as 1/10th of their size towards the maintenance cap at that location.

As far as what you'd do about the crew grades of those old ships while they're in mothballs? The crews could be turned into cadres similar to low tech army units in VB6, and give their grade bonus to newer ships that get built. The old ship would lose all of its grade bonuses.
I guess the percentage of that crew grade that they'd give to the new ship would be similar to how it's passed on during refits.

It'd also make AI opponents that have been around for a long time, become something to take more care against when approaching at war. I think their reserve yards would be a pretty high priority target unless you want them to reactivate hundreds of kilotons of military hardware and surprise you with it when you finally hit them at their core worlds.
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Offline Hazard

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1367 on: January 16, 2018, 06:44:02 AM »
I would like there to be a mothballing mechanic, so that I can reserve old ships instead of just gradually phasing everything out via refits/scrapping like I do now when there's a new generation of ships. I guess the ships would become totally immobile at the maintenance location they were decommissioned at, and would unload all of their fuel, ordnance, and MSP. In exchange they'd cost either nothing or very little to maintain, maybe even only counting as 1/10th of their size towards the maintenance cap at that location.

As far as what you'd do about the crew grades of those old ships while they're in mothballs? The crews could be turned into cadres similar to low tech army units in VB6, and give their grade bonus to newer ships that get built. The old ship would lose all of its grade bonuses.
I guess the percentage of that crew grade that they'd give to the new ship would be similar to how it's passed on during refits.

It'd also make AI opponents that have been around for a long time, become something to take more care against when approaching at war. I think their reserve yards would be a pretty high priority target unless you want them to reactivate hundreds of kilotons of military hardware and surprise you with it when you finally hit them at their core worlds.

First, crew from deactivated ships is already handled; their average skill points are checked, compared to the racial skill point rating for the Academies and if higher, tossed into the crew pool, and if lower the fraction difference is tossed into the crew pool. IIRC anyway.

The biggest issues with mothballing is how long it takes to take the ships out of the mothballs, what facilities you'd use, what parts need to be replaced and how much it costs while in mothballs.
 

Offline bowman

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1368 on: January 16, 2018, 07:45:09 AM »
As I'm not sure where else to put this I'll just ask here-

Could we get a button somewhere to make the grid used in the Galactic Map view visible? I know it we can already auto line up but it would help with planning out where to put all the system balls beforehand and the (at least for VB6) "a system at normal zoom is about 6 in diameter" isn't exactly a good measurement. 

Otherwise, pretty much everything happening with C# Aurora is looking pretty good to me.   Particularly the revamp of naval organization to be fully realized as a core system- with drag and drop, no less!
 
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Offline ChildServices

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1369 on: January 16, 2018, 08:27:10 AM »
First, crew from deactivated ships is already handled; their average skill points are checked, compared to the racial skill point rating for the Academies and if higher, tossed into the crew pool, and if lower the fraction difference is tossed into the crew pool. IIRC anyway.

The biggest issues with mothballing is how long it takes to take the ships out of the mothballs, what facilities you'd use, what parts need to be replaced and how much it costs while in mothballs.
But I don't want the crews added to the pool, I want them added directly to new ships that are built to increase their starting grades. Or to old ships, to strengthen your peace fleet during the mass mothballs that might follow a war's end. I want the grade bonus of the old ship's crew to be preserved rather than converted into more or less manpower.
You always could just dump them into the pool, though. Don't see why that shouldn't still be an option anyway.

How long it takes and the cost would be simple enough. Just the time, facilities, and MSP necessary for a full overhaul from 0-100% on the ship's maintenance clock. Maybe more time than that, it really depends on what "balance testing" says after we get our hands on the game, but I think that's a good enough initial baseline. It wouldn't require any different facilities to those required in normal maintenance and overhauls imo. There's no reason to make more parts of the game for it, it could just be part of the normal maintenance mechanics.
The resources they'd consume in mothballs is tricky, but you could just throw an arbitrary number out and just tweak it as we play the game more and decide what seems fair. For my own arbitrary number I'd say either 1% of the regular MSP for maintenance, or 0%.

No parts would need to be replaced, it'd just be the old ship at full readiness. For missile boats and carriers that'd probably end up being just fine. For melee beam brawlers it would probably be a little more questionable as far as how worthwhile they are to keep in reserve, at least if they become obsolete during that time. iirc most of the ships pulled out of reserve in the Starfire novel "Crusade" were light/escort carriers anyway.
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Offline TCD

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1370 on: January 16, 2018, 09:01:43 AM »
But I don't want the crews added to the pool, I want them added directly to new ships that are built to increase their starting grades. Or to old ships, to strengthen your peace fleet during the mass mothballs that might follow a war's end. I want the grade bonus of the old ship's crew to be preserved rather than converted into more or less manpower.
You always could just dump them into the pool, though. Don't see why that shouldn't still be an option anyway.
I'm not sure how realistic that is though. You're breaking up your veteran crew and spreading them throughout the fleet onto ships they have never been on before. Aren't you going to lose a lot of their efficiency anyway?  I mean yes, they will be better than a fresh recruit but nothing like as efficient as before.

I think that there are still definite balance issues for mothballing missile boats and carriers which don't really become obselete. In reality I think almost everyone would keep the bulk of their fleet in mothballs from construction onward, unless during an active war. Why wouldn't you? That might be a positive thing, making surprise attacks (and a recommissioning race against time) a more dramatic part of the game, but I think it should be acknowledged that it would be a major change to the game.
 

Offline ChildServices

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1371 on: January 16, 2018, 10:51:09 AM »
Mothballing would definitely be a large change to the game, I won't be disputing that. I don't think it'd be a negative one, though, especially with how much more harsh maintenance seems to be in C#.

Hell, think about how many other things are large changes to the game. The sensor, engine, and missile nerfs have already done plenty to alter the game, let alone just the new ground changes and the removal of PDCs.
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Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1372 on: January 16, 2018, 02:35:46 PM »
Some simple mothballing functionality would be nice. The ship would only cost roughly 1/5 regular maintenance and take up roughly 1/5 of a normal ship for maximum hull size.

The downside should be that it takes five times to start up the ship from a regular overhaul and you would have to start it up with fresh crew.

Seems fair to me.
 

Offline ZimRathbone

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1373 on: January 16, 2018, 05:05:39 PM »
IIRC Mothballing did exist in the early days (it certainly was there in the SA antecedent).

Steve removed it because of the problem of a perceived exploit by building directly into mothballs, resulting in the capability of surging huge (albeit inexperienced) fleets in short order without paying the maintenance in the intervening years.  This could result in very large unprotected empires, which could in a matter of months mobilise truly stupendous fleets for offence,  overwhelm small empires and then mothball the lot again. 

I think that this was more of a problem with the Starfire environment because of the relative ease of refitting to more modern tech, whereas Aurora refitting is a lot more restrictive, and more resource intensive.

Slàinte,

Mike
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1374 on: January 16, 2018, 06:20:43 PM »
IIRC Mothballing did exist in the early days (it certainly was there in the SA antecedent).

Steve removed it because of the problem of a perceived exploit by building directly into mothballs, resulting in the capability of surging huge (albeit inexperienced) fleets in short order without paying the maintenance in the intervening years.  This could result in very large unprotected empires, which could in a matter of months mobilise truly stupendous fleets for offence,  overwhelm small empires and then mothball the lot again. 

I think that this was more of a problem with the Starfire environment because of the relative ease of refitting to more modern tech, whereas Aurora refitting is a lot more restrictive, and more resource intensive.

Yes, I know it did exist before but I don't think this would be a problem due to exactly what you say. It wold be a huge amount of waste of resources to build huge amount of ships only to mothball them unless you know there will be a war in a decent short time frame. The cost to refit old designs will be very expensive and time consuming.

But mothballing part of a standing fleet as a reserve could be a good strategic option. You actually might want to mothball older designs rather than refit them. Even older fleets can become decent platforms with only a few rudimentary refits or even as is. A missile frigate can be quite useful with just new modern missiles and a refit to their targeting system.
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1375 on: January 17, 2018, 02:21:07 AM »
I have one request I really would like to be added to C# Aurora that would be a very nice quality of life for RP purposes.

Make it possible to set up proper patrols with ships. With this I mean an ability to have ships sit and wait at a specific location for a number of days/seconds.

It is especially important if I want ships to stay in port for a few days to rest the crew so they can continue patrolling after visiting friends and families, this way I can set up perpetuating patrols and only remove them for maintenance. Even better if you could save patrol routs. It will also make it easier if you want to set up commercial routes and have them rest their crew as well for RP reasons. But mainly this is for setting up patrols with regular patrol ships that you don't want or need long deployment times for. It does feel a bit immersion breaking that you put like 1-2 years deployment time on a local patrol ship just because it is tedious to rest the crew after a few months.

It could also be good if possible to set up fighter patrols from carriers so you can dock, wait for a specified time and then start over the patrol pattern.

Thanks for all your hard work!
« Last Edit: January 17, 2018, 02:25:29 AM by Jorgen_CAB »
 
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Offline Dr. Toboggan

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1376 on: January 17, 2018, 09:46:19 AM »
I have one request I really would like to be added to C# Aurora that would be a very nice quality of life for RP purposes.

Make it possible to set up proper patrols with ships. With this I mean an ability to have ships sit and wait at a specific location for a number of days/seconds.

It is especially important if I want ships to stay in port for a few days to rest the crew so they can continue patrolling after visiting friends and families, this way I can set up perpetuating patrols and only remove them for maintenance. Even better if you could save patrol routs. It will also make it easier if you want to set up commercial routes and have them rest their crew as well for RP reasons. But mainly this is for setting up patrols with regular patrol ships that you don't want or need long deployment times for. It does feel a bit immersion breaking that you put like 1-2 years deployment time on a local patrol ship just because it is tedious to rest the crew after a few months.

Doesn't this already exist with the delay, repeat, and cycle orders? It's not indefinite, but you could just set the repeat counter to 999 or something.
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1377 on: January 17, 2018, 10:41:33 AM »
Doesn't this already exist with the delay, repeat, and cycle orders? It's not indefinite, but you could just set the repeat counter to 999 or something.

There are two problems with this.

1. It only works one time, after an order recycle it ignores the delay setting.

2. You often want to set wait periods in more than one place during long patrol orders for different reasons.

You can set up a long patrol now but it will have to be as one order. As soon as you hit recycle it does not remember the order delay. It would also be good if you could specify it with a drop down selection menu in seconds, minutes, hours or days. It would also be good it the delay is viewable in the order window so you can easily see it. The best way would be if you inserted it as if it was a separate delay order into the queue

It is quite fiddly to do it right now.
« Last Edit: January 17, 2018, 03:01:46 PM by Jorgen_CAB »
 

Offline waresky

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1378 on: January 18, 2018, 09:43:13 AM »
WHY...am repeat : WHY all wanna change something? Please let STEVE finish job..THEN,NEXT,next Era,post requests. OMFG its really boring..EVERY frakking day someone wanna change some. Jesus...
 

Offline Barkhorn

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1379 on: January 18, 2018, 11:16:19 AM »
Now is the time to change something.  He's gotta rewrite the whole game anyway, why not rewrite it better?