C# Aurora Changes Discussion

[Zincat]

snipped

I think you are misunderstanding. What I understood is: If a 10HS shield has strength (say) 100 (10 strength per HS), a 40HS strength shield has double of that strength PER HS (20), so 800 strength. So you could have
4x10HS shields, total strenght 400.
1x40HS shield, total strength 800.

However, it is my understanding that the 40HS shield would recharge at half speed. So, say, if the 4x10HS shields recharge 1 point per second each, the 40 HS shield recharges 2 point per second.
So you have that the smaller shields recharge a total of 4 points per second vs the 2 per second of the larger shield

At least, that's how I undestood it. A tradeoff between strength and recharge speed.

[MagusXIX]

Missile engines should always feel different than shipboard engines. An engine is never just an engine. Missile engines operate under an entirely different set of circumstances than shipboard engines. For starters, they're much, much smaller, and the miniaturization of an engine is expensive and problematic. Try making a Ferrari engine operate at 1/1000th the size and you'll start to see what I mean. All kinds of hiccups will happen, unless you're working in some kind of theoretical vacuum.

To me, it makes sense that missile engine technology should lag slightly behind standard naval engine technology in terms of efficiency and propulsion, and they should also be dramatically more expensive, pound for pound. It's apples to oranges, really.

I say embrace the divorce of the two systems, missile engines and shipboard engines. To me they've always seemed like they should be two different techs in the same category (Power and Propulsion, obviously.)

Go ahead and make them less fuel efficient. Give'em less oomph per ton, as well, and make them cost more. I feel like the warhead should be the smallest part of any serious missile (excluding whatever whackjob thingamabob people are building in their basements) and the bulk of it should be taken up by engines (including agility) and fuel, where fuel and efficiency should be the most major design considerations.

[Steve Walmsley]

With the shield changes, I think I'm misunderstanding something.

If a HS10 shield is equivalent to the shields we currently have (100% of VB6 shields) and a HS40 shield is twice as strong (200% of VB6 shields), why would I ever use a HS40 shield when I could use 4x HS10 shields for twice the strength of a single HS40 shield and half the recharge time?

Recharge time is per shield module, right? So if I have 4 size 10 shield modules that each take 300s to charge, that's still just 300s to charge all 4 of them because all 4 are charging independently? Or is it 300s x 4 modules?

Recharge time aside, unless I've misread something it seems like 4x size 10 shield modules (1+1+1+1=4) is still twice as strong as 1x size 40 shield module (1 x 200% = 2.) Am I mistaken?

The HS40 shield is 200% percent stronger per HS, so it is eight times stronger than the HS10 shield in total. If both have the same recharge technology, the HS40 will take twice as long to recharge as the HS10.

[Steve Walmsley]

I think you are misunderstanding. What I understood is: If a 10HS shield has strength (say) 100 (10 strength per HS), a 40HS strength shield has double of that strength PER HS (20), so 800 strength. So you could have
4x10HS shields, total strenght 400.
1x40HS shield, total strength 800.

However, it is my understanding that the 40HS shield would recharge at half speed. So, say, if the 4x10HS shields recharge 1 point per second each, the 40 HS shield recharges 2 point per second.
So you have that the smaller shields recharge a total of 4 points per second vs the 2 per second of the larger shield

At least, that's how I undestood it. A tradeoff between strength and recharge speed.

The recharge amount per HS is the same for both the 4x 10HS and the 1x 40HS. However, because the latter has twice the total strength, it takes twice as long to fully recharge.

[iceball3]

I am currently working through the code for the various component designs (as you can probably tell from recent posts) and I have reached missile engines.

The new engine changes were intended to make all engine types (missile and ship) follow the same set of rules for size vs fuel efficiency. One impact of this change was that applying this new size modifier for fuel consumption would penalise missile engines. However, now I am in the missile engine code I have realised that the VB6 code applies a x5 modifier to fuel consumption for missile engines on top of the modifiers for size, fuel consumption tech and boost tech.

If I don't use this x5 modifier in C#, missile engines won't change very much in terms of fuel consumption vs VB6. The whole point of the changes was to have the same rules for all engines so if (for game play reasons) I wanted to keep the x5 modifier and reduce missile ranges, I need a reason for it. I think my original rationale was that missile engines were one use only and not designed for efficiency.

So maintain same rules for all engines and keep missile ranges as they are (and missile fuel a minor consideration) or keep the x5 modifier and make fuel a serious consideration for missiles.

Thoughts?

Code: [Select]

Engine Power: 8     Fuel Use Per Hour: 6.34 Litres
Fuel Consumption per Engine Power Hour: 0.792 Litres
Engine Size: 1 HS    Engine HTK: 1
Thermal Signature: 8     Exp Chance: 10
Cost: 5    Crew: 1
Materials Required: 5x Gallicite
Military Engine

Development Cost for Project: 50RP


Code: [Select]

Engine Power: 2      Fuel Use Per Hour: 8 Litres
Fuel Consumption per Engine Power Hour: 4 Litres
Engine Size: 5 MSP      Cost: 0.5
Thermal Signature: 2
Materials Required: 0.5x Gallicite
Development Cost for Project: 100RP
For comparative analysis. 1 HS Versus 0.5 HS Missile engine.
Hmm.
I don't suppose we can use the complexity of the situation to kick the 5 lightsecond limit of beams and make them superluminal weapons, eh?
It's a bit tricky figuring, yeah.

[alex_brunius]

I am currently working through the code for the various component designs (as you can probably tell from recent posts) and I have reached missile engines.

The new engine changes were intended to make all engine types (missile and ship) follow the same set of rules for size vs fuel efficiency. One impact of this change was that applying this new size modifier for fuel consumption would penalise missile engines. However, now I am in the missile engine code I have realised that the VB6 code applies a x5 modifier to fuel consumption for missile engines on top of the modifiers for size, fuel consumption tech and boost tech.

If I don't use this x5 modifier in C#, missile engines won't change very much in terms of fuel consumption vs VB6. The whole point of the changes was to have the same rules for all engines so if (for game play reasons) I wanted to keep the x5 modifier and reduce missile ranges, I need a reason for it. I think my original rationale was that missile engines were one use only and not designed for efficiency.

So maintain same rules for all engines and keep missile ranges as they are (and missile fuel a minor consideration) or keep the x5 modifier and make fuel a serious consideration for missiles.

Thoughts?

The most consistent way to handle this IMO is to remove the flat x5 modifier and replace it with a dynamic modifier based on engine power modifier instead (basically tweak engine power mod formula), scaled in such a way that at maximum power modifier (x6 which can only be reached by missile engines), they consume roughly x5 as much fuel.

This also means that fighters and other high power mod warship engines become more fuel hungry, which IMHO also is desired to get the right feeling ( real world fighters have upwards to 50% of their carried tonnage as fuel, while aurora fighters get by with 5-10% ). And I think it works well with the changes to fuel logistics as well.

Another result of this is that you will be able to design slower larger missiles that are more fuel efficient, but when the missile engines start to become the same size as fighter engines are, what conceptual difference is there really between them?



Regarding the changes to shields, do you have plans to have shield recharge require power from reactors now instead of fuel?

Regarding the latest shield changes: I like them with one caveat.

It is great that they no longer require fuel (can be kept on indefinitely, makes them more useful as a defense measure). It is  great they are stronger the bigger they are. Once again, like for engines and generators, it makes sense that a bigger shield generator would have a bonus due to less miniaturization.

I am uncertain, however,  about the fact they recharge for the same fixed amount instead of a proportional amount. Coupled with the fact that larger shields are comparatively easier to destroy, it makes me wonder what the possible usage of large shields will be.

I feel that shield regeneration is very important in a prolonged fight. I don't know if the added shield strength is going to be enough to justify going with one large shield compared to 5 smaller shields which would regenerate a lot faster, and would be harder to kill off entirely.

As far as I understand Shields will have identical recharge rate, so using more smaller shields have no recharge bonus other then that they reach their lower maximum faster. In terms of absolute points of damage recharged it's identical, so your not losing performance.

[alex_brunius]

Missile engines should always feel different than shipboard engines. An engine is never just an engine. Missile engines operate under an entirely different set of circumstances than shipboard engines. For starters, they're much, much smaller, and the miniaturization of an engine is expensive and problematic. Try making a Ferrari engine operate at 1/1000th the size and you'll start to see what I mean. All kinds of hiccups will happen, unless you're working in some kind of theoretical vacuum.

To me, it makes sense that missile engine technology should lag slightly behind standard naval engine technology in terms of efficiency and propulsion, and they should also be dramatically more expensive, pound for pound. It's apples to oranges, really.

I say embrace the divorce of the two systems, missile engines and shipboard engines. To me they've always seemed like they should be two different techs in the same category (Power and Propulsion, obviously.)

They are not anywhere near 1/1000th size, so I think your comparison fails here.

In fact our Aurora standard missile engine of 2-3 MSP have much more in common with a 50 ton (=20MSP) fighter engine, then that same fighter engine has in common with a 2500 ton capital ship engine. ( Actually if fighter engine design was a bit more flexible I could even see use for even smaller 10-20 ton fighter engines for really small single seat fighters having pretty much identical size to some missile engines ).

If missile engines should play by different rules then fighter engines do, then why should fighter engines play by the same rules that capital ship engines do? It makes no sense.



Most of what your asking for like more expensive and less efficient is also already handled by the power modifier scaling ( which makes boosted engines significantly more expensive and significantly less effective ).

[Hazard]

Scaling missile engine fuel consumption by how much it's beyond your safe long term engine boost tech is a good idea. It gives you the option to deploy extremely fast missiles but of short range, which work well with sensor boats, or as an advanced technology option you can go for a slower missile with longer range and a smaller warhead and a sensor package as a fire and forget/seeker missile.

It's also easily justified by noting 'more power' beyond your ability to properly control leads to lower efficiency engines, solved by shoving in more fuel than can be burned. Rather like an after burner actually, it just ruins the engine and turns it into a one shot drive.

[Bremen]

I am currently working through the code for the various component designs (as you can probably tell from recent posts) and I have reached missile engines.

The new engine changes were intended to make all engine types (missile and ship) follow the same set of rules for size vs fuel efficiency. One impact of this change was that applying this new size modifier for fuel consumption would penalise missile engines. However, now I am in the missile engine code I have realised that the VB6 code applies a x5 modifier to fuel consumption for missile engines on top of the modifiers for size, fuel consumption tech and boost tech.

If I don't use this x5 modifier in C#, missile engines won't change very much in terms of fuel consumption vs VB6. The whole point of the changes was to have the same rules for all engines so if (for game play reasons) I wanted to keep the x5 modifier and reduce missile ranges, I need a reason for it. I think my original rationale was that missile engines were one use only and not designed for efficiency.

So maintain same rules for all engines and keep missile ranges as they are (and missile fuel a minor consideration) or keep the x5 modifier and make fuel a serious consideration for missiles.

Thoughts?

If missile efficiency remains mostly the same, it seems like the result will be that missiles can easily have extremely long range but will be primarily range limited by sensors and fire controls, since very large sensors are getting a range reduction. In some ways this is quite interesting; it opens up the possibility of using detached sensor ships as spotters for your missile launchers (and interceptor craft to shoot down the enemy spotters).

[MarcAFK]

I don't like the idea of artificially adding in an extra multiplier to missiles, but Honestly i think missile ranges are far too long and if making an arbitrary change results in an improvement  to gameplay I'm all for it.
Personally I don't like shields being decoupled from fuel usage, but only because I'm a fan of the idea of them requiring power plants, and power plants needing fuel anyway. XD.

[Alucard]

I am currently working through the code for the various component designs (as you can probably tell from recent posts) and I have reached missile engines. 

The new engine changes were intended to make all engine types (missile and ship) follow the same set of rules for size vs fuel efficiency.   One impact of this change was that applying this new size modifier for fuel consumption would penalise missile engines.   However, now I am in the missile engine code I have realised that the VB6 code applies a x5 modifier to fuel consumption for missile engines on top of the modifiers for size, fuel consumption tech and boost tech. 

If I don't use this x5 modifier in C#, missile engines won't change very much in terms of fuel consumption vs VB6.   The whole point of the changes was to have the same rules for all engines so if (for game play reasons) I wanted to keep the x5 modifier and reduce missile ranges, I need a reason for it.   I think my original rationale was that missile engines were one use only and not designed for efficiency.   

So maintain same rules for all engines and keep missile ranges as they are (and missile fuel a minor consideration) or keep the x5 modifier and make fuel a serious consideration for missiles.   

Thoughts?

I would personally make small efficient missile engines very expensive.   Than a person would have to chose whether to pay an order of magnitude more for their missiles or reduced the engine efficiency. 

EDIT: As cost, I mean mainly time to produce.  That make sense as miniaturizing efficiently is complicated.

[Steve Walmsley]

Scaling missile engine fuel consumption by how much it's beyond your safe long term engine boost tech is a good idea. It gives you the option to deploy extremely fast missiles but of short range, which work well with sensor boats, or as an advanced technology option you can go for a slower missile with longer range and a smaller warhead and a sensor package as a fire and forget/seeker missile.

It's also easily justified by noting 'more power' beyond your ability to properly control leads to lower efficiency engines, solved by shoving in more fuel than can be burned. Rather like an after burner actually, it just ruins the engine and turns it into a one shot drive.

I think this suggestion will fix the issue. They key part here is: "by how much it's beyond your safe long term engine boost tech". Rather than linking additional missile engine fuel consumption to the absolute boost amount, it should be based on the boost amount beyond the current max tech for ship engines.

This allows complete consistency between ship and missile engines in the spectrum where they both operate. Once you move outside of the boost range possible for ships, additional fuel consumption can be added without breaking consistency.

[Steve Walmsley]

With the above in mind, I have added the following to the missile engine fuel efficiency calculation

if Boost Used > Max Boost Multiplier Tech then
      High Boost Modifier = (((Boost Used - Max Boost Multiplier Tech ) / Max Boost Multiplier Tech) * 4) + 1;

So if a race has Max Boost Tech of 2x, any missile with a Boost Level of 2x or less will use the standard boost fuel modifier calculation of Boost Level ^ 2.5.

Above a Boost Level of 2x, the linear High Boost Modifier will come into effect, reaching a maximum of 5x fuel consumption at 4x Boost Level.

Here is a comparison between VB6 and C# using MPD engines and an engine size of 1 MSP. The Max Boost Tech for this race is 2x:


VB6 Missile Engine with 2x Boost
Engine Power: 1.6      Fuel Use Per Hour: 81.51 Litres
Fuel Consumption per Engine Power Hour: 50.944 Litres
Engine Size: 1 MSP      Cost: 0.4
Thermal Signature: 1.6
Materials Required: 0.4x Gallicite
Development Cost for Project: 80RP

C# Missile Engine with 2x Boost
Engine Power 1.60      Fuel Use Per Hour 76.8 Litres
Fuel Consumption per Engine Power Hour 48.0 Litres
Size 1.00 MSP  (2.5 tons)      Cost 0.80
Development Cost 80 RP

Materials Required
Gallicite  0.80


VB6 Missile Engine with 4x Boost
Engine Power: 3.2      Fuel Use Per Hour: 922.18 Litres
Fuel Consumption per Engine Power Hour: 288.182 Litres
Engine Size: 1 MSP      Cost: 0.8
Thermal Signature: 3.2
Materials Required: 0.8x Gallicite
Development Cost for Project: 160RP

C# Missile Engine with 4x Boost
Engine Power 3.20      Fuel Use Per Hour 4344.5 Litres
Fuel Consumption per Engine Power Hour 1357.6 Litres
Size 1.00 MSP  (2.5 tons)      Cost 1.60
Development Cost 160 RP

Materials Required
Gallicite  1.60

[Iranon]

(actual power multiplier/Maximum Engine Power Multiplier tech)^2.5
or 1, whateve is smaller

would allow for a smooth progression and cap out at an additional x5.66 at maximum boost.

The only problem I see is that it increases an inherent property of Aurora propulsion scaling that I find slightly unintuitive: Even with high-power engines, the performance-optimum will be a relatively large engine and a comparatively small fuel load, as opposed to pretty much any real-life high-power engine.


EDIT: Oops, ninja'd by the man himself (sorry, slight forum weirdness).
Sounds good.

[Zincat]

Well, earlier I was mistaken, because I almost never reach high tech levels (I play conventional starts).

As such I believed that the maximum engine power modifier would eventually reach the same boost level you can apply to missile engines, thus removing the penalty.

Instead I checked and (assuming the wiki is sort of accurate), you can only normally reach a x3 modifier on engine boost, while the missile maximum boost goes higher than that. So there will always be a penalty if you boost your missile speed to the maximum.

It still does seem to me that average-speed missiles will have the same insane range as before, though. And it's... well, too long I think. I'm just hoping the changes to sensors can somehow mitigate the problem.