Author Topic: C# Aurora Changes Discussion  (Read 441733 times)

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Offline jonw

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #540 on: March 05, 2017, 10:53:15 AM »
I really like the idea of deep-space shipyards, as I feel this kind of matches with the deep-space maintainence facilities we have.  This might not necessarily have to be a separate module - my understanding is that currently shipyards vanish if untractored in deep space, would there be some way of changing this? Modules which provide shipbuilding or fighter capabuilding if minerals are present in cargo holds? That'a a really cool idea.

I do feel that the ship modules tend to have significant advantages over ground installations.  The automated ship modules for terraforming, AM, harvesting etc feel to me like they should be hugely more expensive.  If you're abstracting a ground facility which takes 50 000 people to run into an automated version which can operate with some minimal crew, there should be some huge downside for the automation.  Could this be addressed by a seprate tech line, like automation efficiency, which scales ship module BP cost relative to the ground installation build cost?

It would be awesome if we could eventually do entirely nomadic empires like Homeworld or the BSG survivors.
 

Offline Felixg

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #541 on: March 05, 2017, 12:50:34 PM »
The huge downside is that they are much more vulnerable, a single ship with an energy weapon could cruise through and obliterate them.
 

Offline alex_brunius

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #542 on: March 07, 2017, 08:09:05 AM »
Precursors currently fill the role of pirates. It would be tricky to set up the economics necessary for believable pirates, but I could add other races that function with a 'raiding' mentality.

I always though the other spoiler race was alot more fitting for a "pirate" like role.

I mean for these your already half way there with how they reclaim the wrecks of destroyed ships to grow their own numbers, right?

All that's missing is some raiding behavior so they send out ships to nearby systems and prey on commercial ships trying to destroy them and salvage the resources before you can arrive in strength. If ability to tow wrecks was introduced they could even tow home the wrecks.

Being sneaky like that and hit your weaker slower ships while avoiding military ships where possible, or luring them into traps also would fit better with their theme and weaponry I think.



The role of Precursors I always considered to be one more as gatekeepers/guardians of bodies or systems with desirable minerals, anomalies, ruins or colony sites.

Another way to promote raiding more might be to make it easier to sneak past jump points. Maybe make a Jumpdrive option for a raiding ships which makes the jumpdrive 3 times as large (prohibitive for warships) but gives it say 100 times the jump radius and limits it to self jump only?


The huge downside is that they are much more vulnerable, a single ship with an energy weapon could cruise through and obliterate them.

Unlike an undefended fresh fringe colony with some terraforming installations that will fall to a single enemy ground battalion, and even be captured intact by them or what?

The ships are less vulnerable in fact since they have the theoretical ability to try to run away given some warning, while the colony most certainly can't.

If you want to keep either installations or ships safe you need to protect them, that's not something that is inherently a weakness of either of them IMO.
« Last Edit: March 07, 2017, 08:18:48 AM by alex_brunius »
 

Offline ExChairman

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #543 on: March 07, 2017, 08:33:36 AM »
I would like a raiding race to. Like the star fire Tangries(?) that could raid ships and worlds, reducing your empires income from shipping lines, sometime maybe even capture a ship. This would give us a reason to have "police" ships or a more regular military patrols...

By the way I would like to have a automatic order for "rescuing" crew pods. Its a bit tedious to pick up a 100+ pods after a fighter battle...
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Offline TheDeadlyShoe

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #544 on: March 07, 2017, 09:29:40 AM »
RE: Class Rank Limits
Will we also be able to bar a class from having a commander at all?

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Another way to promote raiding more might be to make it easier to sneak past jump points. Maybe make a Jumpdrive option for a raiding ships which makes the jumpdrive 3 times as large (prohibitive for warships) but gives it say 100 times the jump radius and limits it to self jump only?
Rather a kick in the pants to beam ships, who don't need it; and it won't help raiding (as opposed to suicide runs) much unless you also have a way to jump out.

 

Offline bean

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #545 on: March 07, 2017, 10:51:15 AM »
On the other hand if you have a lot of crewman you'll be able to get 'the cream of the crop' into the ships getting large grade bonuses (up to 30% or so).
This isn't true.  The maximum starting grade bonus is 10%.  Anything above that is the result of crew training or (rarely) battle damage. 
I've long advocated having a system where you can select one of four levels of crew: conscript (current, no points), low (50% of normal crew points), normal (current, normal crew points) and picked (150% of normal crew points).  It annoys me that my newest and best ships always have the worst crew, and I'd really rather crew rotated on and off ships so you get a more even distribution of experience across the fleet.

Quote
Please note that all this description comes from my observation of the mechanics, not any 'hard' knowledge so this may all be wrong.
Good job on saying this.  Don't take the above as criticism.
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Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #546 on: March 07, 2017, 12:34:20 PM »
RE: Class Rank Limits
Will we also be able to bar a class from having a commander at all?

Yes, I can add that.
 

Offline TheDeadlyShoe

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #547 on: March 07, 2017, 01:26:14 PM »
That would be rad. You could RP fighter as drones (leaving aside such minor details as the enlisted spacers in the back seat...)
 

Offline alex_brunius

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #548 on: March 08, 2017, 05:58:26 AM »
Rather a kick in the pants to beam ships, who don't need it; and it won't help raiding (as opposed to suicide runs) much unless you also have a way to jump out.

Yeah it would pose balancing issues with missiles for JP assault, and your absolutely right that a way to jump out would be needed too. Would make sense if normal Jump drives also could jump back out from the same position they appeared btw, and was not forced to go back to 0km distance from the JP. I didn't even think about that.

To be balanced such a raiding Jumpdrive would probably need to be banned from being missile armed too.
 

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #549 on: March 08, 2017, 11:23:39 AM »
That would seem a very arbitrary and clumsy restriction.

But piracy/raiding is an angle I would find very interesting; it's a way to get a legitimate challenge out of an inferior opponent and to generally add a lot of tactical depth because adequately protecting one's shipping is much more dynamic than just protecting planets and jump points.
 

Offline Haji

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #550 on: March 08, 2017, 11:42:49 AM »
This isn't true.  The maximum starting grade bonus is 10%.  Anything above that is the result of crew training or (rarely) battle damage. 

In version 6.43 I have an entire group of asteroid miners, who never received any TF training and who never were near any enemy and they all have grade bonus of 34% which appears to be actual cap. From what I have seen it is impossible to get a grade bonus through task force training, you can only get it through lucky roll (if you have enough crews) or through battle damage.

 

Offline Zincat

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #551 on: March 08, 2017, 11:46:02 AM »
The entire reason why the "missile problems" (too powerful compared to beams, hard to defend against with equal mass of point defense etc etc) come out so frequently is due to the current aurora model which does not really work so well. And the culprit I think is the 5-second interval limitation.

In the real world there would be no problems, because target acquisition takes just a fraction of a second. But in aurora, due to the 5-second interval limit, any missile that is launched close enough to its target will NOT be fired upon except by CIWS (which ignore every sensor mechanic, including jump point delays. Another unbalanced thing in my opinion).

Because of this, if say your missiles can make 20000km/second, they suddenly become the most powerful weapon if the target is closer than 100000km because they cannot be intercepted. I would imagine instead that they could and should be targetable by semi-automatic, AI-controlled weapon systems of a technology level many times more advanced coompared to ours.

Now I understand why the 5-second interval exists in game. It is undeniable, however, that it creates a powerful distorsion in favor of missiles in close range combat. And until the issue is somehow fixed, I think we will still be discussing often of how missiles are overpowered and unbalanced.
 

Offline bean

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #552 on: March 08, 2017, 12:54:59 PM »
In version 6.43 I have an entire group of asteroid miners, who never received any TF training and who never were near any enemy and they all have grade bonus of 34% which appears to be actual cap. From what I have seen it is impossible to get a grade bonus through task force training, you can only get it through lucky roll (if you have enough crews) or through battle damage.


Yes, that's due to the crew training ratings of their commanders.  Those are all at least 70 years old, and apparently have had enough crew training during that time to get to the required grade points.  It's weird, but plausible.  They didn't build that way, I promise.
(In my ideal system, crews would rotate in and out, so you didn't see stuff like that.)
« Last Edit: March 08, 2017, 12:59:06 PM by byron »
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Offline Haji

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #553 on: March 13, 2017, 01:20:51 PM »
I have two requests for Aurora changes, both pertaining to the economy.
First I'd like the civilian shipping lines to do a better job of choosing what to build. In several campaigns now I had lines building a lot of colony ships despite the fact that there was no colonisation to be done by them. On the other hand I could really use the income from trade, but they didn't have enough freighters. It would be nice if the lines checked if there is any colonisation going on before building those ships, possibly by checking if any planets are set as a source of colonists of not.
Second I'd like modification to the placement of the civilian mines. Currently they only look for duranium and sorium which means there can be planets with hundreds of millions of tonnes of easily accessible minerals but those are ignored if they don't have either of the two in reasonable accessibility. It would be nice if civilians built mines on any rock with large and easily accessible deposits, although if that's the case the income from the mines may require adjustment.

Those are of course minor changes, so if there is no time (or will) to implement them it's fine.
 

Offline Person012345

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #554 on: March 13, 2017, 07:28:49 PM »
I have two requests for Aurora changes, both pertaining to the economy.
First I'd like the civilian shipping lines to do a better job of choosing what to build. In several campaigns now I had lines building a lot of colony ships despite the fact that there was no colonisation to be done by them. On the other hand I could really use the income from trade, but they didn't have enough freighters. It would be nice if the lines checked if there is any colonisation going on before building those ships, possibly by checking if any planets are set as a source of colonists of not.
Second I'd like modification to the placement of the civilian mines. Currently they only look for duranium and sorium which means there can be planets with hundreds of millions of tonnes of easily accessible minerals but those are ignored if they don't have either of the two in reasonable accessibility. It would be nice if civilians built mines on any rock with large and easily accessible deposits, although if that's the case the income from the mines may require adjustment.

Those are of course minor changes, so if there is no time (or will) to implement them it's fine.
Remember that 7.2's changes will be implemented into C# aurora as well: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8151.0

I don't know if that top one is quite what you're asking, but civilian ship building will be modified.