Aurora 4x
New Players => The Academy => Topic started by: orfeusz on September 13, 2011, 03:46:11 PM
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What weapons will work in atmosphere? Missiles of course, but what else?
Also, does shields work in atmosphere?
thanks :)
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I know Meson works in atmosphere. I don't know about the rest.
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Pretty sure that the damage of other beam weapons scales based upon how much atmosphere is present, with full damage at 0atm and none at 1atm. Note that damage gets rounded down, so gauss weapons are pretty much always useless in this situation.
Mesons, however, are unaffected.
Haven't heard anything in particular about shields, so I presume that those would work. Would require you to outfit your PDCs with fuel, though.
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Except the game doesn't even give you the option of putting shields on a PDC.
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shields dont work in PDCs - more to do with the proximity of the ground than to do with atmosphere IIRC.
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So, only missiles and meson. Thanks
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All beam weapons except for meson beams are affected by atmosphere.
Damage of those weapons is reduced by an amount depending on density of the atmosphere.
I do belive it goes something like Damage Reduction = atmospheric pressure x 100 in percent. Damage is rounded down.
This means, a pressure of 0.2 will reduce damage by 20%.
Weapons (such as gauss cannons) that will deal only 1 pt of damage are totally ineffective on any kind of atmosphere, due to the round down.
At a pressure of 1.0 or more, all beam weapons except meson beams become ineffective.
Note: I am not sure the formula is correct, but I _am_ sure, that atmosphere of 1+ renders all beams useless.
Note 2: CIWS work for PDCs, and given they are basicly a Phalanx system on steroids, I don´t see, why they shouldn´t. (Yes, they use gauss cannons, but they are very short ranged, so the atmosphere has not enough time to effect the shots)
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So, only missiles and meson. Thanks
Mesons don't fire as far as other energy weapons of the same tech level so it is best to design them to go into turrets designed for a PD role only.
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Mesons don't fire as far as other energy weapons of the same tech level so it is best to design them to go into turrets designed for a PD role only.
Do you know what the range is for PDC to PDC combat (same planet)?
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As Aurora considers every planetary body as just a point, weapons range does not come into play in that case
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but what would happen if you fire a missile? What will the distance be it needs to cover?
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Check out the ICBMs in a pre-TN start. They have an effective range of 0. So any missile with any sort of range will have the range to hit targets on the same planet.
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ICBM's are a special case. They have a 15 minute 'hang time' between launch and impact. Mesons have this time to intercept.
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So missiles other than ICMB's can only be shot down my final fire mode when shot from the same planet? Wouldn't that mean that there is no way to use your mesons if you don't already have your active sensors turned on?
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I don't know about pdc meson combat but i assume since they are the same location they can attack eachother in atmosphere.
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So missiles other than ICMB's can only be shot down my final fire mode when shot from the same planet? Wouldn't that mean that there is no way to use your mesons if you don't already have your active sensors turned on?
Actually non ICBM's can not be shot down if they hit on the same impulse that they are fired on. So if you have a missile that goes 20,000km/s then anything inside of 100,000km will be hit before any point defense gets a chance to fire. This is because of the sequence of play and when the active sensors are checked. The sensor check is before the fire phase, the missiles are fired and move to hit their target. After the combat phase they will be detected, but for that first 5 seconds of flight they are basically invisible.
Brian
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I thought final defense mode works right before missile impact?
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I thought final defense mode works right before missile impact?
It does, but detection follows all movement.
Movement Phase (This section repeats a number of times equal to the number of movement sub-pulses. This may just be one sub-pulse for the whole increment or many sub-pulses. If an event is generated during a sub-pulse, that becomes the last sub-pulse and the time for the increment is reduced accordingly)
- Fleets Move
- Fighter Groups Move
- Fighter Groups Reload (remaining rearm time is reduced)
- Monsters Move (including precursors)
- Missile Salvos move (including intercept, point blank point defence and damage allocation\planetary bombardment)
- Life pod Endurance Check (any lifepods that have exhausted their endurance are removed)
- Sensor Update (all sensors are checked for new contacts)
End of Movement Sub-pulses
Check Primary Special Orders (If a fleet has no move orders, its primary special orders are checked
Check Secondary Special Orders. (If a fleet still has no move orders, its secondary special orders are checked
Ion Storms are updated
Damage Control takes place
Fire Phase
- Weapons are recharged or reloaded
- Shields are recharged
- Point Defence in area mode is assigned targets
- Ships fire weapons
- Planets launch missiles
- Fighters launch missiles
- Combat results from energy weapons are applied
- Monsters (including precursors) fire weapons. Damage is applied as each monster fires
End of Fire Phase
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So there is no way to defend yourself from missile attacks if you play with multiple factions on earth? I thought That in one of steves fictions (the one where a russian/American/eu alliance eventually form an empire) he used mesons to shoot down some missiles. Did this change sometime? Or does he intend to once make it that way
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So there is no way to defend yourself from missile attacks if you play with multiple factions on earth? I thought That in one of Steve's fictions (the one where a russian/American/eu alliance eventually form an empire) he used mesons to shoot down some missiles. Did this change sometime? Or does he intend to once make it that way
For Trans-Newtonian missiles this is correct.
ICBM's are a special case. When Steve implemented them, they were given a 15 minute flighttime and should be targetable during that time. To my knowledge this has not been changed, though I don't usually play conventional starts so I have no direct experience with them.
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Also don't forget that PDCs from different continents will be over the horizon, so firing a meson is 'impossible' unless you plan on taking out your own base around the projector to fire through the crust of the Earth!
Granted, Mesons ignore armor ....
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Ehm, targeting PDCs with meson armed PDCs works perfectly fine actually. Kinda weird though, I guess Aurora has flat planets :)
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Also don't forget that PDCs from different continents will be over the horizon, so firing a meson is 'impossible' unless you plan on taking out your own base around the projector to fire through the crust of the Earth!
Granted, Mesons ignore armor ....
Since Aurora doesn't have any mechanic for terrain inhibiting line-of-sight PDC's are free to directly target each other. The only limitation is atmosphere interaction.
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That is why I said 'impossible' (notice the single quotes), there is no game logic to stop you but I would personally not do it and instead follow some kind of role play that makes PDCs missile/hangar/troops only.
Or, you could concoct some kind of handwavium TN mumbojumbo that allows Mesons to fire through the crust without any side of effects on the firing mechanism. :)
I guess what I am trying to get at is that your projector for the meson cannon might possibly have to point through your actual PDC inorder to hit the PDC on the other side of the planet. And to me, that is not a good thing :o
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Well, I just assume that transNewtonian Meson cannons follow the laws of gravity and can thus be shot like a missiles :)
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Or, you could concoct some kind of handwavium TN mumbojumbo that allows Mesons to fire through the crust without any side of effects on the firing mechanism.
Like.... Mesons ignore shields and armor? :-\
I agree it bugged me at first. Here's another one, it's not restricted to mesons. Just most other beams run into issues with atmosphere. Put PDC's on a body with an atmo of less than one and they can shoot at each other.
Until Steve adds terrain effects and multiple planet locations with specific facings I'm good with PDC's being able to engage each other.
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aurora is 2d
of course the planets are flat!
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Like.... Mesons ignore shields and armor? :-\
My recollection of the technobabble is that Mesons (as opposed to other beams) have zero cross-section until they decay, depositing all their energy on the other side of the solid stuff in between (like armor or planets). It ain't the way real mesons work, but that's why it's called technobabble :) So my understanding of the design intent is that you should be able to target other (presumably over-the-horizon) PDC with meson-armed PDC, but not with other beams such as lasers.
John