Author Topic: C# Aurora Changes Discussion  (Read 442048 times)

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Offline sloanjh (OP)

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #285 on: October 23, 2016, 08:46:35 AM »
When they came for my planetary shipyards I said nothing, because I wasn't a shipyard worker. . .

ROFL!!!

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Offline Felixg

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #286 on: October 24, 2016, 07:41:23 AM »
I am a bit late to the party, but there is no reason to remove hangars from PDCs and they should absolutely NOT be removed. If you don't like them fine, don't use them, but don't snatch the option from those of us who like using them.

From my point of view, we have Mass drivers which can launch and recover huge masses of matter from space, I always just fluff that the same equipment is used to launch and recover TN ships and is built into hangars on PDCs to accommodate ships at least as large as the base can hold.

The TN ship drops into a gravity well and the base catches it and brings it safely into berthing, then when the ship is set to depart it is launched back into space, and once its free of the gravity well all its TN wizardry reactivates.

The same can easily apply for missiles and fighters to be flung into orbit where their TN properties become active.

As I said at the start, if you don't like it, or can't make it work in your own head, don't use it. Simple as that, the rest of us will think of ways for our universes to make it work within the existing technobabel.

Edit: as for shipyards and their crews. I always figured they were completely automated, which is why it took so long to retool the darned things to make a new kind of ship rather than just having them being able to build ships up to X size in whatever berth was available.

If your universe is allergic to automation (Something Aurora annoyingly is when it comes to ships already, my ships shouldn't NEED crew with the right components dangit! xD) then we already have telecommute robotics today. the workers sit on the ground and use VR to control machine in orbit to do the manufacturing. There, they are crewed, but the crew never has to leave the surface of their world or take their spouse and 2.5 kids and dogs to space with them.
« Last Edit: October 24, 2016, 07:52:40 AM by Felixg »
 

Offline Garfunkel

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #287 on: October 24, 2016, 07:37:03 PM »
Hey Steve, would it be possible to add more secondary naming theme slots?

Currently we have our main theme and up to 4 secondary ones and we can adjust the percentages. It would be great if that would be extended - for example, when playing as the European Union, just five themes is woefully not enough and I have to swap them around every few years to get a proper representation from all EU countries. This gets even worse for United Earth scenarios.
 

Offline Inglonias

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #288 on: October 25, 2016, 12:56:20 PM »
Quote from: Felixg link=topic=8497.  msg98257#msg98257 date=1477312883
I am a bit late to the party, but there is no reason to remove hangars from PDCs and they should absolutely NOT be removed.   If you don't like them fine, don't use them, but don't snatch the option from those of us who like using them. 

From my point of view, we have Mass drivers which can launch and recover huge masses of matter from space, I always just fluff that the same equipment is used to launch and recover TN ships and is built into hangars on PDCs to accommodate ships at least as large as the base can hold. 

The TN ship drops into a gravity well and the base catches it and brings it safely into berthing, then when the ship is set to depart it is launched back into space, and once its free of the gravity well all its TN wizardry reactivates. 

The same can easily apply for missiles and fighters to be flung into orbit where their TN properties become active.   

As I said at the start, if you don't like it, or can't make it work in your own head, don't use it.   Simple as that, the rest of us will think of ways for our universes to make it work within the existing technobabel.   

Edit: as for shipyards and their crews.   I always figured they were completely automated, which is why it took so long to retool the darned things to make a new kind of ship rather than just having them being able to build ships up to X size in whatever berth was available. 

If your universe is allergic to automation (Something Aurora annoyingly is when it comes to ships already, my ships shouldn't NEED crew with the right components dangit! xD) then we already have telecommute robotics today.   the workers sit on the ground and use VR to control machine in orbit to do the manufacturing.   There, they are crewed, but the crew never has to leave the surface of their world or take their spouse and 2.  5 kids and dogs to space with them. 

Ideally, we would have mods for this sort of thing (I think I remember hearing that C# Aurora would be moddable, but I'm too lazy to search and could very easily be wrong)

A compromise would perhaps be that we could have maintenance bonuses for any planet that had enough mass driver capacity to "catch" the ships you wanted to maintain.   Heck, maybe even a tractor beam facility or component that worked the same way as Mass Drivers, but applied to ships (perhaps Mass Drivers aren't delicate enough to handle these ships?)
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #289 on: October 25, 2016, 02:00:49 PM »
Hi - sorry I have been absent or a few days. I should be able to catch up with the thread tomorrow
 

Offline Felixg

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #290 on: October 25, 2016, 11:19:09 PM »
Ideally, we would have mods for this sort of thing (I think I remember hearing that C# Aurora would be moddable, but I'm too lazy to search and could very easily be wrong)

A compromise would perhaps be that we could have maintenance bonuses for any planet that had enough mass driver capacity to "catch" the ships you wanted to maintain.   Heck, maybe even a tractor beam facility or component that worked the same way as Mass Drivers, but applied to ships (perhaps Mass Drivers aren't delicate enough to handle these ships?)

Having hangar space on PDCs as well as an additional facility for tractoring or mass driving ships up to X size similar to how hangars and jump drives work would be a good way to handle it. if it HAS to be changed for some reason.
 

Offline Borealis4x

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #291 on: October 27, 2016, 01:24:25 AM »
Bleh, I do not like that ships have to stop to refuel even with a tanker. The explanation that TN ships are more "wet fleet like" doesn't make much sense to me an even if it did would not be enough of a justification for this. Underway refueling is a thing.  It's especially disheartening making logistics more complicated when you know the AI doesn't have to worry about it at all...

I was hoping to make it so I had a dedicated sub-fleet with repair/ordinance/fuel ships which would allow fleets to operate far past their normal range. They'd slow them down a lot, but they would be dropped off before jumping to a sector with hostiles.
« Last Edit: October 27, 2016, 01:28:16 AM by BasileusMaximos »
 

Offline Borealis4x

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #292 on: October 27, 2016, 01:31:07 AM »
Also, will we be able to transfer admin commands to ships? My idea of a fleet is to have multiple fleet level organizations (in this case, squadrons) under the command of a single admin (or in this case, a fleet)
 

Offline bean

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #293 on: October 27, 2016, 10:09:50 AM »
Bleh, I do not like that ships have to stop to refuel even with a tanker. The explanation that TN ships are more "wet fleet like" doesn't make much sense to me an even if it did would not be enough of a justification for this. Underway refueling is a thing.  It's especially disheartening making logistics more complicated when you know the AI doesn't have to worry about it at all...

I was hoping to make it so I had a dedicated sub-fleet with repair/ordinance/fuel ships which would allow fleets to operate far past their normal range. They'd slow them down a lot, but they would be dropped off before jumping to a sector with hostiles.
Did you miss the bit where there's a special unrep tech?  I'd say that's reasonably realistic, as doing unrep IRL is very complicated and took a lot of work to make happen the way it does now.  Your dedicated sub-fleet will work just fine.
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Offline 83athom

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #294 on: October 27, 2016, 11:10:57 AM »
Bleh, I do not like that ships have to stop to refuel even with a tanker. The explanation that TN ships are more "wet fleet like" doesn't make much sense to me an even if it did would not be enough of a justification for this. Underway refueling is a thing.  It's especially disheartening making logistics more complicated when you know the AI doesn't have to worry about it at all...
Think of TN engines creating a wave of space behind them pushing them forward (like an Alcubierre drive). This makes seeing ships in space flying like a wet navy easier as the engines move a ship linearly with engine power (generalization of the speed formula).
I was hoping to make it so I had a dedicated sub-fleet with repair/ordinance/fuel ships which would allow fleets to operate far past their normal range. They'd slow them down a lot, but they would be dropped off before jumping to a sector with hostiles.
That is still possible in the C# version, but with tech directly correlating with how many support ships in the sub-fleet you would need.
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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #295 on: October 27, 2016, 11:54:39 AM »
I really think the refueling change is problematic.

It's already my preference to build most ships fuel-efficient, aiming at 55% engine tonnage or so (and consequently low-power engines for most designs).
The ships are a third bigger than they need to be, but not really more expensive for all but the fastest designs (which benefit greatly from fuel savings, well worth a modest build cost increase).
The slower assets could easily carry enough fuel to last for their whole service life. The main reason they don't is that it's more efficient to offload things into overhead-free commercial hulls... but that falls apart if we introduce overhead in refueling systems (even if the components are cheap, there are going to be associated research costs).
The rewards to build your fleet so you can pretty much ignore fuel  will become significant, now there's a major operational benefit in addition to the economic one.

I already voiced similar concerns for the MSP side of things.
Off-Topic: show
Recap: At the moment, playing within the maintenance system is simply convenient for colonies that have all minerals, like homeworlds. We won't waste anything by building MSP we don't need. And while the heavily discounted MSP that come (for now) with maintenance storage bays are at odds with other cost, they mean staying within the  system when a need for frontier supply arises is also reasonable.
However, it's in many cases already economical to build ships that you never intend to maintain or overhaul... use up and salvage. When MSP become a real cost factor, playing around the system becomes preferable to playing within it (designate everything as a supply ship, large engineering spaces, recycle MSP)


Aim: Increase the depth of logistics. End: Encourage playing around logistics.
 

Offline Tree

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #296 on: October 28, 2016, 01:22:10 AM »
Think of TN engines creating a wave of space behind them pushing them forward (like an Alcubierre drive).
Why? They don't work on the same principles at all. Plus we can have hundreds of ships in the same task group, close enough together to appear as a single blip on the map, without them interfering with each other, and have fighters land and take off carriers without problems.

And even if it worked like that, why don't they just fly next to each other, in the same bubble of warped space?
 

Offline TCD

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #297 on: October 28, 2016, 08:35:35 AM »
I really think the refueling change is problematic.

It's already my preference to build most ships fuel-efficient, aiming at 55% engine tonnage or so (and consequently low-power engines for most designs).
The ships are a third bigger than they need to be, but not really more expensive for all but the fastest designs (which benefit greatly from fuel savings, well worth a modest build cost increase).
The slower assets could easily carry enough fuel to last for their whole service life. The main reason they don't is that it's more efficient to offload things into overhead-free commercial hulls... but that falls apart if we introduce overhead in refueling systems (even if the components are cheap, there are going to be associated research costs).
The rewards to build your fleet so you can pretty much ignore fuel  will become significant, now there's a major operational benefit in addition to the economic one.

I already voiced similar concerns for the MSP side of things.
Off-Topic: show
Recap: At the moment, playing within the maintenance system is simply convenient for colonies that have all minerals, like homeworlds. We won't waste anything by building MSP we don't need. And while the heavily discounted MSP that come (for now) with maintenance storage bays are at odds with other cost, they mean staying within the  system when a need for frontier supply arises is also reasonable.
However, it's in many cases already economical to build ships that you never intend to maintain or overhaul... use up and salvage. When MSP become a real cost factor, playing around the system becomes preferable to playing within it (designate everything as a supply ship, large engineering spaces, recycle MSP)


Aim: Increase the depth of logistics. End: Encourage playing around logistics.
I'd have said the current system is more problematic- that you are encouraged to design fleets of warships with virtually no fuel tanks, followed everywhere they go by a tanker fleet. If people are encouraged to put a sensible amount of fuel onto their warships I don't think that will be a bad thing. And surely your 30% larger warships have many other hidden costs of an equally powerful but smaller warship- not least that you need 30% larger shipyards?
 

Offline QuakeIV

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #298 on: October 28, 2016, 12:00:31 PM »
Generally I don't have tankers following my fleets around.  Predominantly since they tend to get blown to hell with substantial percentages of my strategic fuel reserves aboard.

e:  Unless you mean having tankers in the general viscinity, in which case yeah I do that all the time.
 

Offline TCD

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #299 on: October 28, 2016, 12:58:05 PM »
Generally I don't have tankers following my fleets around.  Predominantly since they tend to get blown to hell with substantial percentages of my strategic fuel reserves aboard.

e:  Unless you mean having tankers in the general viscinity, in which case yeah I do that all the time.
I guess it does depend on how closely I mean follow! And also how big and how armored your tankers are. I've certainly had armored tankers mixed in with missile cruisers squadrons before, although I might leave them behind with the jump tender during a battle.

Actually, I'm having second thoughts about my vehemence, as I realise I don't have a strong view on how far a cruiser should realistically be expected to travel without refuelling. Looks like the US navy goes for about 5000-6000 nautical miles, but what would that be in Aurora terms?