Replacing PDCs

[QuakeIV]

Disagree, space 1889 games were always uninteresting to me, and I never in all of my aurora games touched the SM system except while setting up a non-earth start.

[Father Tim]

Okay, but to me saying 'Aurora doesn't (naturally) do what I want, and I refuse to touch SM mode to adjust it' is equivalent to saying 'this TV isn't tuned to the channel I want to watch, and I refuse to touch the remote control to change it.'

[QuakeIV]

I'm fine if they cut PDCs as they are now, but they are a great RP tool for some people since you can do so much stuff with them.  The system was very flexible, if flawed and apparantly horridly difficult to code.  Saying you can just declare ground units as a PDC with all the modules you would have wanted it to have is unreasonable, because that isn't actually bourne out in the game mechanics.  If your mountain stronghold could just be loaded up into a transport and flown to another planet, that is really weird and unpleasant.  For that matter, if said mountain stronghold was meant to hold ammo, and it actually cant, then you are left with it coming under attack and having to figure out your own mechanics, and executing them yourself regarding what happens to the planetary missile stocks in relation to that.  The PDC system pretty much took care of all of that.  Established mechanics on how many missiles it could hold, and what happens if that stockpile gets shot by a laser or whatever.  I mean, for that matter, you can attack and take control of PDCs, and garrison them with different kinds of units.  How would you even model that in the new system?  It seems like it could potentially get sniped out from under the 'garrison' units by attacking ground troops without any real chance of the garrison units even being effected, since all the ground units would be lumped together into one giant army.

Editing THAT to reflect what you want would be at the point where you need to get the DB password from Steve, and literally adjusting the game data to reflect what you want it to reflect, presumably every combat cycle, which is just totally outside what most people want to do when they are playing a game.  The game is a world that they do stuff in, not some vaguely useful tool that helps you sometimes, and hinders you other times when it makes changes to your ground units that are against your personal rules.

Aurora may have started out as a tool, but its generally understood that it has long since moved past being that.

Very few people want to go to the trouble as well, as far as I know they tend to start asking questions about why they are bothering playing the game at all instead of just playing around with fun ideas in their head while doing something else entirely.  Its a heck of a lot easier to do that, I can tell you, and its what I'd be thinking at that point.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

First screenshots of ground unit design window. This tab is for the design of individual unit classes (a single vehicle, soldier or gun emplacement). For the STO option, the mount includes the weapon, a reactor of the exact size needed for the recharge rate and a built-in beam fire control with a 4x range modifier. The cost is equal to the static platform, the weapon, the reactor and half the fire control. STO weapons have a 25% bonus to fire control range. The damage shows two numbers, which is the damage at minimum and maximum range.

The next stage (on a separate tab) is combining unit classes to create formation templates. You might have a template consisting solely of 500 Stormtroopers or you might combine different unit classes into a single template. More on that when I finish the tab.

BTW I just noticed a couple of bugs (I don't display the tracking speed of the STO unit class and the cost for the capabilities isn't in the mineral requirements). I'll fix it but can't be bothered redoing the screenshots

[Hazard]

I'll fix it but can't be bothered redoing the screenshots

Could you show one or two pictures of the fixed version?


As a suggestion, move the Additional Components selection window to the place currently occupied by Armour type and shift the Capability and Armour Type lists one spot to the right. This would let you turn the Component Type list into a dead list of component types and lets you select components from the Components selection window.

[DuraniumCowboy]

Any way to consider adding mechs?

Also, maybe consider a "component" for law enforcement applications (like "non-lethal weapons").  The thought being that conventional forces aren't normally ideal for police work.  I think using police units in combat and vice versa might have some trade offs.

[jonw]

Sexy! I'm assuming planetary CIWS functions as normal ship CIWS? Would it counter missiles directed against shipyards? Is atmosphere ignored for the STO weapons, and can other beam weapons than lasers be used?

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Sexy! I'm assuming planetary CIWS functions as normal ship CIWS? Would it counter missiles directed against shipyards? Is atmosphere ignored for the STO weapons, and can other beam weapons than lasers be used?

Yes, planetary CIWS is the same as ship CIWS. Atmosphere no longer affects combat. Other beam weapons can be used.

I hadn't considered shipyards. It is effectively the same location though so perhaps planetary CIWS should protect them. I'll give it some thought.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Any way to consider adding mechs?

Also, maybe consider a "component" for law enforcement applications (like "non-lethal weapons").  The thought being that conventional forces aren't normally ideal for police work.  I think using police units in combat and vice versa might have some trade offs.

You can name the units in any way you see fit. So you could create an ultra-heavy vehicle design and call it a Titan, or Mech, or AT-AT. Whatever best suits the parent race.

[QuakeIV]

It kindof looks like a no at the moment, but would it be possible to have a super heavy armored vehicle that is just a surface to orbit weapons platform?

[Scandinavian]

The size ratios seem off to me. Looking at the table in the screenshots, a technical (light vehicle with a light crew-operated AP weapon and no armor to speak of) is size 30, while the two guys with RPGs riding along in the bed (infantry, no armor, light AT weapons) are a total size of 32. Clearly this can't be right.

[Shiwanabe]

So, there are a few oddities and bugs that I noticed. If you're got the bugs already, good, but I feel better getting them noted where you can see (sorry about stream of consciousness, was making notes as I read and analysed):

-Minerals vs cost; the final cost for specialised units is correctly calculated, but the minerals cost isn't. (cost .31 vs vendarite .2 for the Catachan Jungle Fighters)

-No indication of number of slots for a given type; I'm left slightly confused where the barrier for the secondary slots is. It'll be better in game, when I can just switch but it'll add more overhead for learning what to research if it's not easily available information.

-Lots of acronyms, no visible translations; What is max SF? AR I eventually got, but that's weird as well with Base and Racial - Might be better to just show Racial as that's what's used in the final unit.

-Surface to Orbit weapon ranges limited by Beam Fire Control Range, but FC Range is not listed on page while Speed is.

-Rifts world type but no specialisation?

-StO guns seem oddly small, base weapon+reactor+FC size with no turret? I can't say for certain as I can't see what techs you have, but they seem a bit small compared to what I remember my turrets coming to.


Other notes and things that feel weird to me:

-Construction equipment is vehicle; I'm not certain how you're doing this, but personally I feel that construction is done by infantry with vehicular support. While this could be just for building that vehicular support, it just feels weird to me that the construction equipment is not a large module for infantry.

-Infantry can't carry AP >20, but Heavy infantry can be AR 30; I don't think everything should automatically be able to pen itself, but it's odd that infantry units can become heavily armored enough to be un-pennable by infantry grade weapons. And this includes the anti-tank stuff they can carry. At current RL tech, this is hugely skewed in the other direction where infantry would be able to carry stuff with ~AP40, while having maybe AR10.

-NO ability to increase health at cost of output; Bulkhead equivalents. Kinda like the armored Magazines for missiles.

-StO cannot be placed on Mobile; It's odd that the superheavy stuff can't carry even the small examples of this.

The size ratios seem off to me. Looking at the table in the screenshots, a technical (light vehicle with a light crew-operated AP weapon and no armor to speak of) is size 30, while the two guys with RPGs riding along in the bed (infantry, no armor, light AT weapons) are a total size of 32. Clearly this can't be right.

I think you might be underestimating how much is abstracted away.

technical - vehicle, light AP weapon, min armour: 18+12+2//32
RPG 'guy' - infantry, light Anti-tank, min armour:  0+16+1//17

While this does mean that you're getting just under 2 RPGs for each technical, you're not necessarily only getting one person per RPG.

I do however feel that this might need to be adjusted as when you compare like for like:

technical - vehicle, light AP weapon, min armour: 18+12+2//32 - HP 40, shots 1/5.333size
Soldier - infantry, personal, powered armour:  0+5+2//7 - HP10, shots 1/7size

Or maybe not. Size for Size, they're fairly even. The technical gets more shots but is only one unit so anti-tank is more dangerous. While the Infantry has slightly more health with the 'bonus' of being split into units.

It's looking like it might be a case where you want better armour until they can beat it, then you want to use the smallest thing that can beat their armour. I guess it's spreadsheets time.

[Hazard]

@Steve Walmsley how do specializations stack? Do the cost multiplications compound or do they provide a flat modifier?

Static should probably come with options for heavier armour; while shipboard weapons would basically trump anything that could be used to armour a static position, this is less true of groundforces, and it would let players (hopefully comparatively cheaply) create heavily protected static positions. I mean, right now heavy power armour infantry has a 4% chance of being penetrated by a heavy anti vehicle weapon (given that (60/30)^2 equals 4), but the odds of a static position being penetrated by the same weapon is 36%, with the same fortification ratings on the defense. Unless Static Units are really cheap to construct and maintain in a ground defense role this means that using them to depict elaborate fixed fortifications even their increased health pool doesn't really provide a benefit in comparison. Never mind their much greater size.

While I see no issue with the large size of the HQs, the sheer number of support personnel needed to run an HQ would certainly justify it, right now you can squeeze a size 800 Divisional HQ onto a size 18 vehicle. Which seems to run counter to the amount of vehicular support you'd need to effectively put an HQ on wheels.

I'd like to propose two more specialisations: Poisonous Atmosphere Combat, for those planets where the atmosphere either is toxic or has been terraformed into toxicity, which would need special training and equipment to deal with, and Urban Combat, for those planets where the dominant terrain has become, well, urban terrain.

-Lots of acronyms, no visible translations; What is max SF? AR I eventually got, but that's weird as well with Base and Racial - Might be better to just show Racial as that's what's used in the final unit.

Actually, good question. What is]/b] maxSF?

-Rifts world type but no specialisation?

Presumably mountain combat.

-Construction equipment is vehicle; I'm not certain how you're doing this, but personally I feel that construction is done by infantry with vehicular support. While this could be just for building that vehicular support, it just feels weird to me that the construction equipment is not a large module for infantry.

Given it's size 100 that seems reasonable to me, so long as it's exclusive to infantry. Given that Construction equipment is IIRC not meant to be representative of things like combat engineers but literal construction equipment meant to build fortifications, infrastructure and other militarily useful buildings.

-Infantry can't carry AP >20, but Heavy infantry can be AR 30; I don't think everything should automatically be able to pen itself, but it's odd that infantry units can become heavily armored enough to be un-pennable by infantry grade weapons. And this includes the anti-tank stuff they can carry. At current RL tech, this is hugely skewed in the other direction where infantry would be able to carry stuff with ~AP40, while having maybe AR10.

You mean AR 0. Personal armour provides in no way sufficient protection from even a light AT weapon even on a near miss, which can and often does do major internal damage. A direct hit means they can wash the poor bugger off the walls. Depicting modern day warfare of infantry vs an AT weapon involves depending on Fortification ratings to force enemy attacks to miss and to hope for the enemy to run out of munitions.

AT weapons may be rather effective when wielded against personnel, but they're also rather limited in the amount of shots you can fire.

Anyway, Heavy Powered Armour would effectively provide every infantryman with his own Infantry Fighting Vehicle in a smaller package, so... Yeah. It'd mean that all else being equal HPA attacking HPA with their heaviest armour piercing weapons penetrates less than once in 200 shots that hit. That's going to be expensive.

-NO ability to increase health at cost of output; Bulkhead equivalents. Kinda like the armored Magazines for missiles.

Sure there is; better armour and rather more directly, putting more units into a formation. Also, armour tech IIRC is meant to impact HP ratings.

-StO cannot be placed on Mobile; It's odd that the superheavy stuff can't carry even the small examples of this.

Ultra heavy vehicles should probably be able to carry Surface to Orbit weaponry, but only if that's their only mount. Then again, the size of those guns keeps growing, so eventually even that won't be enough, and coding the exception that ultra heavies with StO guns can only carry one component might not be worth the effort.

[Garfunkel]

The construction equipment here is not shovels and picks. Even today, military construction units like the US Corps of Engineers are 100% motorized. You need all sorts of specialized tractors and trucks to achieve anything significant in the timeframes of modern combat. I'm absolutely fine with restricting construction / combat engineer capability to vehicles. Though in the name of modularity, having a light construction capability for infantry (picks & shovels) and heavy construction capability for vehicles (tractors etc) would allow the creation of support units as part of combat brigades as well as specialized construction/engineering brigades.

Can't wait to get to play with the templates!

[TheDeadlyShoe]

I like the look of it.  I'm glad there's a FC range bonus for STO units. Hopefully that will be enough to stave off people sitting 10,000km outside the STO range for however long it takes to kill the STO,