Author Topic: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions  (Read 345071 times)

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Offline QuakeIV

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #435 on: August 18, 2018, 12:57:23 PM »
I think reactors probably shouldn't be possible to put into a pod, but it might be fun to put lasers, missiles, sensor, EW, or fire control pods onto fighters interchangeably.  It would also be more or less consistent with modern multiroles to some extent, which also tend to do that sort of thing.

 

Offline Whitecold

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #436 on: August 18, 2018, 03:45:25 PM »
I think reactors probably shouldn't be possible to put into a pod, but it might be fun to put lasers, missiles, sensor, EW, or fire control pods onto fighters interchangeably.  It would also be more or less consistent with modern multiroles to some extent, which also tend to do that sort of thing.
That does not make much sense, a single laser is already 3HS, which is a massive investment in tonnage. A laser mount on a fighter is more a spinal mount than an underwing gunpod. Also, how would you penalize flexible mounts compared to permanent ones, and what is there left to design on a fighter but the engine?
 

Offline QuakeIV

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #437 on: August 18, 2018, 05:44:28 PM »
Make the modular pods take up more room, and have pod components not be behind the ships armor.

Other than that, you'd also have to design reactors for fighters generally speaking.
 

Offline Scandinavian

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #438 on: August 19, 2018, 01:55:00 PM »
Loadout flexibility on real-world combat aircraft is mostly limited to mounting different kinds of bombs, missiles, and enhanced sensor packages, not interchangeability between bomb/missile and cannons or machine guns, or between machine guns and large-caliber autocannons. This is a level of flexibility that standard box launchers already have in Aurora.

It's not that you couldn't in principle mount a machine gun on a missile hardpoint - the interfacing itself is not that difficult an engineering problem - but an airframe optimized for missile combat is going to suck at strafing and vice versa. People who try to build an airframe that can cater to both air superiority, installation strikes, and close air support tend to come to grief. (Or rather, the people who pay for the experiment do - the people who build it usually do quite well out of the project...)
 

Offline QuakeIV

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #439 on: August 19, 2018, 04:16:06 PM »
I could point to the harrier for instance to show that to be not particularly true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-12_Equalizer

Both better sensors and various kinds of weapons have been put onto multirole fighters for ages.  Yes a given aircraft is generally specialized to some degree, but they still have some ability to mount gun pods, sensor pods, EW pods, and various kinds of missiles and bombs.  The whole value of multiroles is your air superiority aircraft can help out with air strikes, and thusly you can have more capability in both roles by having more flexible aircraft.
 

Offline Garfunkel

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #440 on: August 19, 2018, 10:53:10 PM »
But Harrier is a terrible fighter plane and was mainly used due to its VTOL capability, that allowed "mini-carriers" to ferry them to combat zones. The plane lacks an integral gun and thus the need to carry a gun-pod like the Equalizer. So it kinda proves the point Scandinavian was making.

The space weaponry is so, so, so much larger in Aurora when compared to air-to-air or air-to-ground weaponry in current use, that the swappable pod concept for fighters in space combat really doesn't fly. I'll use the Equalizer as an example: it weights 122 kgs and a Harrier weighs 6,340 kg. That's less than 2%.

Even the smallest lasers (10cm Focal Size) are 150 tons. With Reduced-size you can bring it down to 100 tons but then you have to accept quadrupled recharge times. That's still 20% of your 500 ton fighter, or even a higher percentage if you're making a faster interceptor-type fighter. To me, swapping something that is twenty percent of the mass of a fighter does not sound doable. Even the B-52, that could carry 31 tons of bombs, couldn't just swap those bombs with some other weapon, because it was purpose-built to carry bombs in its cavernous bomb bays and nothing else.

So replacing weapon pods for ground support sounds reasonable and that's already in. Swapping space combat weapons like pods does not sound reasonable, as long as we're using current sizes (and if lasers or box launchers can suddenly be miniaturized even further, it has serious ramifications to ship-to-ship combat too).
 

Offline QuakeIV

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #441 on: August 19, 2018, 11:01:08 PM »
I'd point out the lower laser size limit is totally arbitrary at the moment.  I do however agree that something like that in particular souldn't be swappable for a fighter sized thing.

Also, the equalizer was a perfectly effective weapon (it let the thing destroy tanks for heck sakes), and the harrier was quite useful for the fact that it was very flexible, despite its overall low speed.  It performed fine in the Falklands war for instance.

I could see lasers as they are now not being particularly swappable for fighter sized things, but that doesn't mean hardpoints shouldn't be possible period.  It would be terrible if it was a system that only applied to fighter sized vessels arbitrarily, so lasers could easily just only be swappable for much larger vehicles.  And then fighters have reduced multi mission capability purely off of the fact they are so small.
 

Offline Whitecold

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #442 on: August 20, 2018, 09:24:35 AM »
I'd point out the lower laser size limit is totally arbitrary at the moment.  I do however agree that something like that in particular souldn't be swappable for a fighter sized thing.

Also, the equalizer was a perfectly effective weapon (it let the thing destroy tanks for heck sakes), and the harrier was quite useful for the fact that it was very flexible, despite its overall low speed.  It performed fine in the Falklands war for instance.

I could see lasers as they are now not being particularly swappable for fighter sized things, but that doesn't mean hardpoints shouldn't be possible period.  It would be terrible if it was a system that only applied to fighter sized vessels arbitrarily, so lasers could easily just only be swappable for much larger vehicles.  And then fighters have reduced multi mission capability purely off of the fact they are so small.

I'd like to point out that  any change in minimum beam weapon size will be immediately picked up as PD weapon. There it likely has a larger impact than for beam fighters.
The entire hard point system seems overly complicated, all these things need to be separately produced, stored in magazines... We already have refits to make small modifications. We could add a refit module that allows very limited refits away from a population, assuming all required components are available, the refit is cheap enough.
That way you avoid all the additional overhead of hard points, and dealing with items outside armor, and what exactly can be placed there.
 
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Offline chrislocke2000

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #443 on: August 20, 2018, 10:54:01 AM »
The discussion on training and order delays has had me thinking again about general crew readiness for combat. It's always bugged me that you can have a ship sit on a warp point for three years doing nothing and then suddenly be all guns blazing within the space of a five second increment. That level of readiness just seems odd to me.

I know its something as a player you can just RP by not firing straight away but I'd be interested in seeing some mechanic in the game to address this although accept that for the small number of times it would have an impact it may be a bit much. As to how that could work I was thinking about 2-3 states for the crew to be at that impact delays to initial but not subsequent orders such as:

- Normal Watch: CIWS no delays, beams short delays, missile batteries longer delay, fighter launch etc longest delay - no impact
- High Alert: As above but with no delays on wider range of actions and reduced delays on fighter launch etc - 2 times rate on deployment time
- Red Alert: Basically then just use normal command delays where applicable based on crew training etc - 5 times rate on deployment

So basically if you want to travel you are on normal alert, if you are worried you go to Amber and then its a decision as to when you go to Red Alert. It clearly makes jump point defence more of a logistical challenge and might make the investment in stealth ships more interesting if it means you have a better chance of catching an enemy out. Probably one for the AI to ignore though.
 
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Offline chrislocke2000

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #444 on: August 20, 2018, 11:01:05 AM »
I'd point out the lower laser size limit is totally arbitrary at the moment.  I do however agree that something like that in particular souldn't be swappable for a fighter sized thing.

Also, the equalizer was a perfectly effective weapon (it let the thing destroy tanks for heck sakes), and the harrier was quite useful for the fact that it was very flexible, despite its overall low speed.  It performed fine in the Falklands war for instance.

I could see lasers as they are now not being particularly swappable for fighter sized things, but that doesn't mean hardpoints shouldn't be possible period.  It would be terrible if it was a system that only applied to fighter sized vessels arbitrarily, so lasers could easily just only be swappable for much larger vehicles.  And then fighters have reduced multi mission capability purely off of the fact they are so small.

I'd like to point out that  any change in minimum beam weapon size will be immediately picked up as PD weapon. There it likely has a larger impact than for beam fighters.
The entire hard point system seems overly complicated, all these things need to be separately produced, stored in magazines... We already have refits to make small modifications. We could add a refit module that allows very limited refits away from a population, assuming all required components are available, the refit is cheap enough.
That way you avoid all the additional overhead of hard points, and dealing with items outside armor, and what exactly can be placed there.

The only thing I would suggest is a fuel tank variant of a missile. Build it as a normal missile and equip it then have total fuel capacity added to your fighter for a way to vary range but trade off firepower. Just a shame that Aurora does not track used ordnance to deal with the changes in speed.
 

Offline TMaekler

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #445 on: August 20, 2018, 02:23:16 PM »
As far as I am aware,this is the current thinking on fighters in relation to ground combat (where different roles are relevant): http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=9792.msg106084#msg106084

Unless I've missed something this is still the idea for ground support roles. If you mean being able to swap out the missile launchers on a fighter for lasers or whatever on a whim then that is something else (not something I'd be in favour of personally).
This cover most of what I was thinking about. Happy...
One point which was included also in my thoughts was the ability to have fighters which can change ordonance Koadjutors for ‚normal‘ battle usage ase in VB6 aurora. At the moment everything is limited to the size of the missile launchers. So if I would want a multi combat role fighter I would have to design every missile fitting to one launcher size. What I would like to have added would be an option to load for example
a) either 9 S6 missile for space to space combat (total of 54)
b) or 4 S13 missiles for space to ground bombardment (total of 52)
when using box launchers.
So with a S6 box launcher (because they are mounted on the outside of the ship), it would also be possible to mount a lesser number of missiles which could be bigger in size, up to the sum of all box launchers x number of them (54 in the example above, 9 x 6).
 

Offline Garfunkel

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #446 on: August 20, 2018, 03:23:33 PM »
I'd point out the lower laser size limit is totally arbitrary at the moment.  I do however agree that something like that in particular souldn't be swappable for a fighter sized thing.

Also, the equalizer was a perfectly effective weapon (it let the thing destroy tanks for heck sakes), and the harrier was quite useful for the fact that it was very flexible, despite its overall low speed.  It performed fine in the Falklands war for instance.
Oh I completely agree that all the weapon sizes in Aurora are arbitrary, but the system as-it-is seems fairly balanced to me in ship-to-ship combat. Any change to weapon sizes would have far more impact on the far more important aspect of the game (ship-to-ship combat) rather than in fighter combat, and would thus be a major change.

And this is really getting off-topic, but the Harrier really was a terrible plane in air superiority, was only decent in air support role, and the two reasons why it performed as well as it did in the Falklands were that the training levels of Fleet Air Arm pilots was vastly better than their Argentinian counterparts (and before deployment, they got to practice flying against French Mirages) and that the Argentinian planes (especially their Mirage III interceptors) operated at the extreme limit of their range. Oh and the fact that the Argentinian Air Force lacked modern Air-to-Air missiles. Even with such handicaps, the Argentinians kept contesting the air space over Falklands for an impressively long time.

The discussion on training and order delays has had me thinking again about general crew readiness for combat. It's always bugged me that you can have a ship sit on a warp point for three years doing nothing and then suddenly be all guns blazing within the space of a five second increment. That level of readiness just seems odd to me.

I know its something as a player you can just RP by not firing straight away but I'd be interested in seeing some mechanic in the game to address this although accept that for the small number of times it would have an impact it may be a bit much. As to how that could work I was thinking about 2-3 states for the crew to be at that impact delays to initial but not subsequent orders such as:

- Normal Watch: CIWS no delays, beams short delays, missile batteries longer delay, fighter launch etc longest delay - no impact
- High Alert: As above but with no delays on wider range of actions and reduced delays on fighter launch etc - 2 times rate on deployment time
- Red Alert: Basically then just use normal command delays where applicable based on crew training etc - 5 times rate on deployment

So basically if you want to travel you are on normal alert, if you are worried you go to Amber and then its a decision as to when you go to Red Alert. It clearly makes jump point defence more of a logistical challenge and might make the investment in stealth ships more interesting if it means you have a better chance of catching an enemy out. Probably one for the AI to ignore though.
Wow. This is such an great idea and seems fairly easy to implement. Maybe on TG/Fleet basis and not ship basis? Two thumbs up.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #447 on: August 20, 2018, 06:42:21 PM »
The discussion on training and order delays has had me thinking again about general crew readiness for combat. It's always bugged me that you can have a ship sit on a warp point for three years doing nothing and then suddenly be all guns blazing within the space of a five second increment. That level of readiness just seems odd to me.

I know its something as a player you can just RP by not firing straight away but I'd be interested in seeing some mechanic in the game to address this although accept that for the small number of times it would have an impact it may be a bit much. As to how that could work I was thinking about 2-3 states for the crew to be at that impact delays to initial but not subsequent orders such as:

- Normal Watch: CIWS no delays, beams short delays, missile batteries longer delay, fighter launch etc longest delay - no impact
- High Alert: As above but with no delays on wider range of actions and reduced delays on fighter launch etc - 2 times rate on deployment time
- Red Alert: Basically then just use normal command delays where applicable based on crew training etc - 5 times rate on deployment

So basically if you want to travel you are on normal alert, if you are worried you go to Amber and then its a decision as to when you go to Red Alert. It clearly makes jump point defence more of a logistical challenge and might make the investment in stealth ships more interesting if it means you have a better chance of catching an enemy out. Probably one for the AI to ignore though.

I think there was something on these lines in an early version of Aurora but it was removed. The issue was that the defender needed to keep checking the far side of the jump point with scouts (fighter sized) to ensure they had the right alert level, which added a lot of micromanagement.
 

Offline Scandinavian

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #448 on: August 20, 2018, 07:58:06 PM »
As far as I am aware,this is the current thinking on fighters in relation to ground combat (where different roles are relevant): http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=9792.msg106084#msg106084

Unless I've missed something this is still the idea for ground support roles. If you mean being able to swap out the missile launchers on a fighter for lasers or whatever on a whim then that is something else (not something I'd be in favour of personally).
This cover most of what I was thinking about. Happy...
One point which was included also in my thoughts was the ability to have fighters which can change ordonance Koadjutors for ‚normal‘ battle usage ase in VB6 aurora. At the moment everything is limited to the size of the missile launchers. So if I would want a multi combat role fighter I would have to design every missile fitting to one launcher size. What I would like to have added would be an option to load for example
a) either 9 S6 missile for space to space combat (total of 54)
b) or 4 S13 missiles for space to ground bombardment (total of 52)
when using box launchers.
So with a S6 box launcher (because they are mounted on the outside of the ship), it would also be possible to mount a lesser number of missiles which could be bigger in size, up to the sum of all box launchers x number of them (54 in the example above, 9 x 6).
You can already do that with MIRVed missiles. You pay an overhead for the missile bus and are limited to having to fire the entire hardpoint at once and at the same target, but those seem like very reasonable kinds of costs. In your example, you'd mount four size 13 boxes and each of them would load either a size 13 bombardment weapon or a size 1 bus wrapped around two size 6 shipkillers. You only get 8 shipkillers instead of the 9 you would get on a dedicated platform, and you have to fire them in pairs rather than singletons. That trades a 12 % reduction in loadout and barely perceptible reduction in targeting flexibility for the strategic flexibility of multiple loadout configurations, which does not seem like an onerous level of trade-off.

You get in trouble when you try to mount AMMs that way, because they need the targeting granularity that you lose when MIRVing them. But AMMs probably shouldn't be interchangeable with shipkillers without taking some non-trivial performance hit.
 
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Offline MasonMac

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #449 on: August 22, 2018, 12:37:19 PM »
When you close the window that selects the game, please don't have it automatically open the default game. If I wanted that game, I would have opened it.
 
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