Author Topic: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion  (Read 135691 times)

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Offline Mor

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #165 on: February 20, 2016, 05:42:02 PM »
@Iranon, the maintenance clock mechanic hasn't been changed. Everything works just as before. Only instead of ships in orbit using raw minerals as % of build cost, now you are using supplies as % of build cost (which are built with minerals); and that your cargo hold don't come full on delivery, you just need to load them.

The goal of # is reduced micro (having to move\track of multiple raw material vs supplies) and increased realism that in 99.99% would  have no effect on gameplay.
 

Offline Nyvis

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #166 on: February 20, 2016, 05:44:29 PM »
Quote from: Mor link=topic=8152. msg86933#msg86933 date=1456011722
@Iranon, the maintenance clock mechanic hasn't been changed.  Everything works just as before.  Only instead of ships in orbit using raw minerals as % of build cost, now you are using supplies as % of build cost (which are built with minerals); and that your cargo hold don't come full on delivery, you just need to load them.

The goal of # is reduced micro (having to move\track of multiple raw material vs supplies) and increased realism that in 99. 99% would  have no effect on gameplay.

True.  The maintenance load not being there initially weights heavily against storing more and towards using more engineering, though.  Maintenance storage in itself is cheap, but it's load isn't, compared to the alternative.
 

Offline Mor

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #167 on: February 20, 2016, 07:33:23 PM »
True.  The maintenance load not being there initially weights heavily against storing more and towards using more engineering, though.

Yes, you wont be able to pay 7.5 Neutronium for Maintenance storage bay and get:

Duranium 50
Neutronium 12.5
Tritanium 25
Boronide 25
Mercassium 25
Sorium 12.5
Uridium 25
Corundium 25
Gallicite 50

worth of supplies. 

Quote
Maintenance storage in itself is cheap, but it's load isn't, compared to the alternative.

What you are arguing is that maintenance storage bay aren't cost effective now, and it better invest in the alternatives. Maybe, but i doubt that they will be as effective in combat.

EDIT: btw, do you guys use overhuals?
 

Offline iceball3

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #168 on: February 20, 2016, 08:50:47 PM »
EDIT: unrelated, about particle lances:
I feel being bigger should maybe increase range of the beam, rather than just damage.  Right now, it's just a gun with twice the damage for twice the size, but doesn't really offer new tactical opportunities compared to particle beams.  Being x1. 5 range x1. 5 damage could possibly be more interesting.  Just my opinion.
You missed something important about them. That being their damage profile and increased damage. Specifically, the particle lance will have twice the power of a normal particle beam, but it will be the only armor-mitigated weapon that pierces armor as many layers equal to it's damage, and dumps the remainder into the hull. And it has the highest armor penetration of this sort at range, too. So if you're using a strength 10 particle lance against strength 6 armor, a single shot will dump 4 points of damage into the hull and leave a straight hole in the armor, while two size 5 particle lances of the same size will fail to penetrate until two shots overlap sufficiently well.
 

Offline Mor

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #169 on: February 20, 2016, 09:13:59 PM »
yep, this is the equivalent of "tanks" vs  "tank destroyers", one has higher  damage while the other high penetration, both are used to exploit different tactical opportunists. Assuming that you know how much armor each enemy got.

Speaking of, what do I need to do to get that damn armor info in tactical?!
 

Offline QuakeIV

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #170 on: February 21, 2016, 02:04:01 AM »
Shoot them with different powered warheads as far as I can figure.  There is a notification when you get penetration, so if you score a strength four warhead hit and dont get atmosphere streaming, the game automatically deduces for you that they have at least two-thickness armor.  Etc.

Somebody else may have more detailed knowledge of how that works.
 

Iranon

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #171 on: February 21, 2016, 04:20:02 AM »
To solve the maintenance storage issue, adding stacking penalties to engineering modules when above a certain rate compared to ship size would probably help.   Using more engineering space should be design-costly and valuable mostly long term.

Long-deployment ships don't feel overpowered for their main non-gamey use at the moment, so that suggestion isn't without its problems.
Excessive engineering, hangars for everything, offloading engines to commercial tugboats, a few others that escape me at the moment...
there are multiple ways to decrease the maintenance burden and increased number of civilian components will add some more. At the moment, they fall under "interesting option, probably not for general use" rather than "favoured over conventional ships".
Do we really want to cripple them all "because you're supposed to play the game in a specific way, dammit!" ?

@Iranon, the maintenance clock mechanic hasn't been changed. Everything works just as before. Only instead of ships in orbit using raw minerals as % of build cost, now you are using supplies as % of build cost (which are built with minerals); and that your cargo hold don't come full on delivery, you just need to load them.

The goal of # is reduced micro (having to move\track of multiple raw material vs supplies) and increased realism that in 99.99% would  have no effect on gameplay.

Did I ever claim the clock mechanic changed?
Fomerly, the value of maintenance facilities was to keep the clock down, MSPs themselves were cheap. The value of MSPs has increased greatly, and ships consume most of their MSP towards the end of their maintenance life, so now it's a terrible idea to actually use your full maintenance life.

At best, we're now incentivised to have our maintenance life be multiple times our deployment time. At worst, we're incentivised to ignore/break/play around the entire maintenance system because maintaining things became a lot more expensive.

The goal may well be to reduce micro and add realism... but that will only happen if players stick to old habits even though they're now horrifically inefficient.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #172 on: February 21, 2016, 05:59:14 AM »
Now, I hope I'm just misunderstanding something and someone can prove me wrong.

The new system makes it easier as it makes it easier to work around mineral shortages at a maintenance site, and that's a good thing.
But between increased maintenance/overhaul costs (minor) and the initial load of maintenance supplies having to be built/purchased (major), it's now attractive to build ships that need very few MSP during their entire service life.

At the moment, a maintenance storage bay that comes with 1000MSP has a cost of 15.
In 7.2, the contents alone will cost 250.
Maintenance Storage Bays already saw limited use in non-supply-vessels (they were somewhat viable in very cheap craft where engineering bays added few MSPs).
With the extreme cost increase of MSPs, we are given strong incentives to drastically lower their consumption. I can think of plenty, and have practical experience with some for my deep space fleets. Unfortunately, many of the ways to do so are fiddly, a little gamey, or attempt to bypass the maintenance system entirely,

The changes seem to aim for reduced micromanagement and giving us new interesting options. Unless we play extremely suboptimally, my concern is that they will increase micromanagement and limit viable options.

The problem is that in the current version (v7.1) it is cheaper to build a ship with maintenance storage bays and then empty them than to build the equivalent value of MSP, which makes no sense. Because MSP are much more important in v7.2, I had to remove that anomaly.
« Last Edit: February 21, 2016, 03:43:45 PM by Steve Walmsley »
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #173 on: February 21, 2016, 06:25:35 AM »
Long-deployment ships don't feel overpowered for their main non-gamey use at the moment, so that suggestion isn't without its problems.
Excessive engineering, hangars for everything, offloading engines to commercial tugboats, a few others that escape me at the moment...
there are multiple ways to decrease the maintenance burden and increased number of civilian components will add some more. At the moment, they fall under "interesting option, probably not for general use" rather than "favoured over conventional ships".
Do we really want to cripple them all "because you're supposed to play the game in a specific way, dammit!" ?

Did I ever claim the clock mechanic changed?
Fomerly, the value of maintenance facilities was to keep the clock down, MSPs themselves were cheap. The value of MSPs has increased greatly, and ships consume most of their MSP towards the end of their maintenance life, so now it's a terrible idea to actually use your full maintenance life.

At best, we're now incentivised to have our maintenance life be multiple times our deployment time. At worst, we're incentivised to ignore/break/play around the entire maintenance system because maintaining things became a lot more expensive.

The goal may well be to reduce micro and add realism... but that will only happen if players stick to old habits even though they're now horrifically inefficient.

MSP are the same cost as before. Maintenance works the same way as before (except you can now have maintenance facilities in deep space). Ships use about 25% more MSP for maintenance and overhauls, plus they need to load their MSP at launch in the same way as fuel. However, unlike in v7.2, they can use their onboard MSP for maintenance if the naval base at which they are stationed runs out of supplies. None of these factors is influencing how I build my warships in my current campaign.

So far in my current campaign I have found that maintenance is more important than before and I am more aware of it, but that managing it is much easier. For a couple of nations I have built fighter-size maintenance vessels that can shuttle MSP around bases (because SY were tied up and couldn't build supply ships). Tankers are becoming replenishment ships with both fuel and supplies. Forward bases are easier because you only have to worry about shipping in maintenance facilities and supplies. Ensuring MSP for the future is much more important. I am finding that maintenance facilities should be building MSP by default (treat them like fuel refineries) and occasionally supported by construction factories if a lot of ships are being overhauled at once.

With maintenance logistics becoming much important and with more options in terms of commercial support, I have started building more specialised support ships. Here are two classes currently under construction by the Commonwealth, one to support survey ships and one to support warships, plus one of the fighter-sized ships I mentioned.

**************************************************************************************

Amethyst class Survey Support    36,000 tons     172 Crew     1346 BP      TCS 720  TH 1440  EM 0
2000 km/s    JR 2-25(C)     Armour 2-97     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/11/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 5023    Max Repair 37 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 1   
Magazine 200    Cryogenic Berths 400   

JC36K Commercial Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 36000 tons    Distance 25k km     Squadron Size 2
Rolls Royce HE-240 Commercial Magneto-plasma Drive (6)    Power 240    Fuel Use 1.48%    Signature 240    Exp 3%
Fuel Capacity 8,250,000 Litres    Range 2787.2 billion km   (16129 days at full power)

CIWS-160 (2x6)    Range 1000 km     TS: 16000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Ryan Techsystems RTN-25 Navigation Sensor (1)     GPS 2520     Range 25.3m km    Resolution 120
EM-11 Passive Detection Sensor (1)     Sensitivity 11     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  11m km

**************************************************************************************

Reliant class Replenishment Ship    37,200 tons     256 Crew     2007 BP      TCS 744  TH 2400  EM 0
3225 km/s     Armour 1-99     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/8/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 6034    Max Repair 100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 0   
Magazine 1600   

Rolls Royce Commercial Magneto-plasma Drive (6)    Power 400    Fuel Use 5.3%    Signature 400    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 10,000,000 Litres    Range 912.7 billion km   (3275 days at full power)

Perseus Anti-ship Missile (400)  Speed: 32,000 km/s   End: 65.3m    Range: 125.3m km   WH: 6    Size: 4    TH: 106/64/32

Navigation Sensor (1)     GPS 1920     Range 10.5m km    Resolution 120
EM-8 Passive Detection Sensor (1)     Sensitivity 8     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  8m km

**************************************************************************************

Phoebe class Maintenance Vessel    435 tons     4 Crew     48 BP      TCS 8.7  TH 32  EM 0
3678 km/s     Armour 1-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 0
Maint Life 17.48 Years     MSP 1000    AFR 87%    IFR 1.2%    1YR 6    5YR 93    Max Repair 10 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 2   

Shuttle Engine (2)    Power 16    Fuel Use 59.4%    Signature 16    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 34.8 billion km   (109 days at full power)

**************************************************************************************
« Last Edit: February 21, 2016, 06:30:22 AM by Steve Walmsley »
 

Offline Nyvis

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #174 on: February 21, 2016, 07:52:56 AM »
You missed something important about them. That being their damage profile and increased damage. Specifically, the particle lance will have twice the power of a normal particle beam, but it will be the only armor-mitigated weapon that pierces armor as many layers equal to it's damage, and dumps the remainder into the hull. And it has the highest armor penetration of this sort at range, too. So if you're using a strength 10 particle lance against strength 6 armor, a single shot will dump 4 points of damage into the hull and leave a straight hole in the armor, while two size 5 particle lances of the same size will fail to penetrate until two shots overlap sufficiently well.

Missed that, thanks. Yes, it makes them much more interesting! I will have to try them.
 

Offline bean

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #175 on: February 21, 2016, 11:29:39 AM »
I'm backing Steve on this one.  At the moment, it's next to impossible to run the logistics system to its full potential, at least on the attention span I have.  My current flagship game is full of interesting maintainence ships that I'm not using because I don't want to figure out which minerals to take.  Being able to just ship MSP is going to mean I'll actually use them.
Also, Steve, what's with this 7.32 stuff?  What happened to 7.2? 
And when do we get it?
This is Excel-in-Space, not Wing Commander - Rastaman
 

Offline drejr

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #176 on: February 21, 2016, 01:44:24 PM »
It seems like a very sensible change.
 

Iranon

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #177 on: February 21, 2016, 01:54:44 PM »
Again: Standardising on MSP instead of mineral isn't the problem, and it's a good thing. Cost and necessity is the problem.

MSP were always too expensive to bother with and I never built any. Maintenance Facilties themselves were also iffy, many reasonable ships were better off avoiding them. Maintenance Storage Bays were actually costed reasonably - just play around how they compare to additional engineering bays in the ship design window. Yes, being able to put them on civilian supply ships now would be nice... but that's worthless when they become over 15 times as expensive.

Unless I gravely misunderstand something, forward maintenance will still not be worthwhile... and that's because no maintenance will be worthwhile. Hangars (mostly PDC, the occasional towed hangar pod for flexibility and systems that lack convenient bodies) for anything expensive that doesn't need to be out most of the time, odd designs to minimise MSP use for those that do, and aggressive scrapping will be more efficient.

I think I'm starting to repeat myself, and not really convincing anyone. Would it be more productive if I shut up for now, and post my experience and how they match with my concerns after the new version is out?
 

Offline Rich.h

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #178 on: February 21, 2016, 02:59:01 PM »
Is there a reason why in 7.2 when a ship is built it will come with zero MSP? This seems to add an extra micro layer by having to load them before setting off. If we have enough MSP on the planet where a ship is built can they not simply pull out of the yard fully loaded the same way fuel already works?
 

Offline Garfunkel

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Re: Change Log for v7.2 Discussion
« Reply #179 on: February 21, 2016, 03:26:17 PM »
I think I'm starting to repeat myself, and not really convincing anyone. Would it be more productive if I shut up for now, and post my experience and how they match with my concerns after the new version is out?
I think the problem is that you're arguing that this change encourages players to utilize loopholes and exploits - which is a pointless endeavour because

A) it's a single player game and who someone plays it is entirely up to them,
B) you can already toggle maintenance completely off and,
C) any- and everyone can use Space Master mode to "cheat" as much as they want for whatever reason they want.

I'm sorry if I come across harsh but you're not the first one to misunderstand the nature of Aurora and try to treat it as a competitive multiplayer game that lives or dies on being perfectly balanced. There is no balance in Aurora and there shouldn't be. If you find yourself constantly min-maxing everything in your game and using a bunch of exploits and tricks to gain advantage, you should step back and evaluate the entertainment value that you're getting. The AI is not capable of defeating a human player in the first place.