Suggestion for introducing Asymmetrical warfare in Aurora

[Jorgen_CAB (OP)]

I will not defend the idea just because but I think there are some misconception of what it might do and why I don't think it necessarily would do the thing you fear.

First of all it would be resource prohibitive to fit a jump engine like this on every ship... it would be more sound to just build a better fleet for smashing through any defences on a JP instead. So the feature should be balanced around that fact so it is mainly for raiding, scouting and making surgical strikes at enemy listening stations and weaker bases with marine forces in preparation for a strike through the JP.

There should be a cost of doing the jump, let's say there is a very high chance of the engines breaking down so you need lots of supplies if you want to do more than a couple of jumps.

You also could not jump into a system that you don't know exist from the system, so you must know the JP and where it lead first.

Jumping in a whole fleet with dozens or even hundreds of ships would see then completely scattered all over the system, this would be extremely weak as the enemy are then likely to detect some of them and destroy them piece meal, not to mention such a fleet would be very expensive to build in comparison with a regular fleet.

The cost and drawbacks need to be scaled so that you are unlikely to move an entire fleet that way unless you want to do it for role-play reasons.

I also think it is important to understand that the AI are not going to attack you with entire fleets this way... it would be programmed to scout and raid and perhaps do some small invasions as that would be fun.

I think it is important to understand that it would need to be balanced in a way that you would not use entire fleet as a routine, but it should not be impossible given the right technology and resources available. But still, the AI would never do it and you as a player would not be forces to do it either.

I think it would be good for overall role-play... I'm less concerned about how it could be abused as you don't have to abuse it in your campaign like so many other things in Aurora. It is fore most a role-playing platform after all.

I also would not give much stock to how other games handled raiders... I also don't care about the AI when I play multi-faction campaigns anyway.

You could go with the idea to widen the jump from a JP... but the problem then is... how do they get back... is this some kind of suicide mission?!? Where do I get crew and officers to routinely sign up for such crazy missions, must be rare circumstance any way.

I know that Steve have toyed with similar ideas himself and also talked about submarine and covert ops type ships, now... with this type or something similar we would get that. In order for submarine or covert ops like missions to be even remotely part of the game we need ships to get into system while being undetected, otherwise it will not work. There also must be a way for them to get back relatively safely.

I'm also open for other suggestion for how to solve adding more of an asymmetric warfare system to Aurora. If you are just categorically against it that is fine I will not argue that point as I simply don't agree with it.

The rules should then be that ships need to be able to get into and out of systems unnoticed and it need to have a reasonable rate of success.

[Jorgen_CAB (OP)]

Do we really want this rapid movement of fleets? I'm not sure it would be an advantage to the defender. As long as you have knowledge of the jump points you could just as well use it to move your attacking fleet through enemy space.

And if ships need a special expensive jump drive it would limit your defensive fleet as much as the attackers.

While I like the idea of jumping further from the jump points a change like this will change a lot more than just raiding.

It is NOT intended to be a rapid movement of fleets... it could in SOME instances be used for that. But equipping entire large fleet this way would not be economically viable, you still would need to station fleets close to where they need to be.

[Jorgen_CAB (OP)]

I also would like to add something about JP defence scenarios.

Outside building up a huge and super strong JP defence fortress garrison for a very short time frame it is a huge waste of resources and energy. It is by FAR more economical with a modest JP defence force and a rapid response fleet near by, perhaps even in the same system... especially over large stretches of time. If you also know the enemy is stronger in beam combat to begin with then huge JP defence forces is not a very good option to begin with.

So... in MOST scenarios you can just overrun any JP defence forces as the attacker don't have to have a fleet stationed at their JP if they know their fleet is stronger. They can just bide their tide and then suddenly strike and overrun the defences. The attacker will almost always have the advantage of time on their side.

Which I think that the argument of defending JP for those reasons are not really a very convincing argument, especially when you consider how much more expensive an entire jump equipped fleet would be and how strategically vulnerable it would be while scattered all over a system.

A well defended fortress world would be far more potent... a fleet would not dare bypass such a world as it wold be impossible to keep the fleet supplied.

[Father Tim]

I think you have a great idea -- specifically, that it should be possible to sneak single ships through defended jump points in order to perform commerce raiding or other 'submarine'-type missions -- that was presented with terrible mechanics (jumping to somewhere else).

I would LOVE it if Aurora better simulated submarines (though, personal preference, early submarines of the type that spend 90% of their time on the 'surface' and only 'submerge' to attack or evade).

[Jorgen_CAB (OP)]

I think you have a great idea -- specifically, that it should be possible to sneak single ships through defended jump points in order to perform commerce raiding or other 'submarine'-type missions -- that was presented with terrible mechanics (jumping to somewhere else).

I would LOVE[/b it if Aurora better simulated submarines (though, personal preference, early submarine of the type that spend 90% of their time on the 'surface' and only 'submerge' to attack or evade).

I'm open to discuss any ideas, really... my goal was to add asymmetrical warfare to the game.

That includes...

Raiding, Scouting and inserting special forces onto lightly defended enemy installations.

Perhaps if the game would add some cloaking mechanics... but how would the get passed a JP point security force... especially on their way back as they always need to jump from the JP point?

[Jorgen_CAB (OP)]

I also updated the name of this tread as it is more about Asymetrical warfare than a set in stone way to use jump engines... 

[Profugo Barbatus]

I think you have a great idea -- specifically, that it should be possible to sneak single ships through defended jump points in order to perform commerce raiding or other 'submarine'-type missions -- that was presented with terrible mechanics (jumping to somewhere else).

I would LOVE[/b it if Aurora better simulated submarines (though, personal preference, early submarine of the type that spend 90% of their time on the 'surface' and only 'submerge' to attack or evade).

We have cloaking, but it doesn't seem to achieve the job on its own. I do wonder if there's enough in the form of things to raid, however. Planetary PD in C# should be enough to stop a few subs from effectively striking planetary assets, which is fine. Shipyards are a good target, but shipyards are rarely without ships that'd intercept a submarines worth of missile fire. Fuel harvesters are probably a good strategic target, and I imagine most folks just leave them alone, maybe with a civilian PD on 'em. Civilian shipping losses don't have much impact outside of RP purposes, so the effective value of raiding might be low. There's not much in the way of military supply convoys. Still, that's less relevant than being able to try and do it anyway, I just wonder if there's anything we can do to add options. Stealth military insertions, maybe?

As far as how to breach these points go, perhaps some sort of emissions sinking, coupled with special regular-space engines to allow you to capture the thermal signal from them (and make it cost prohibitive), and a heatsink line of tech. When a ship is sinking emissions, its completely blind, and heating up. Get too hot, you can take internal damage from it. Cooling the ship lights you up, more/better heatsinks extend this time. Combine this with cloaking to reduce your active cross section, and the jump dispersion that already exists, and you'll be invisible to passives, and hard to detect with actives. But stay 'submerged' too long, and it'll kill you, and the mission tonnage spent on special engines and heatsinks means getting caught will leave you easily outgunned for the cost.

My hope is the heat mechanism and heatsinks provides an upper limit on how 'big' of a submarine you can feasible achieve at a tech level, between the cloaking and the tonnage limits. It also means that submarines don't become feasible until you develop some technology, so it is an investment to develop this stealth tech, atop the manufacturing costs of the special parts. I can't imagine thermal sinking hasn't been proposed before though, so I look forward to seeing the flaws in this

[Jorgen_CAB (OP)]

I think you have a great idea -- specifically, that it should be possible to sneak single ships through defended jump points in order to perform commerce raiding or other 'submarine'-type missions -- that was presented with terrible mechanics (jumping to somewhere else).

I would LOVE[/b it if Aurora better simulated submarines (though, personal preference, early submarine of the type that spend 90% of their time on the 'surface' and only 'submerge' to attack or evade).

We have cloaking, but it doesn't seem to achieve the job on its own. I do wonder if there's enough in the form of things to raid, however. Planetary PD in C# should be enough to stop a few subs from effectively striking planetary assets, which is fine. Shipyards are a good target, but shipyards are rarely without ships that'd intercept a submarines worth of missile fire. Fuel harvesters are probably a good strategic target, and I imagine most folks just leave them alone, maybe with a civilian PD on 'em. Civilian shipping losses don't have much impact outside of RP purposes, so the effective value of raiding might be low. There's not much in the way of military supply convoys. Still, that's less relevant than being able to try and do it anyway, I just wonder if there's anything we can do to add options. Stealth military insertions, maybe?

As far as how to breach these points go, perhaps some sort of emissions sinking, coupled with special regular-space engines to allow you to capture the thermal signal from them (and make it cost prohibitive), and a heatsink line of tech. When a ship is sinking emissions, its completely blind, and heating up. Get too hot, you can take internal damage from it. Cooling the ship lights you up, more/better heatsinks extend this time. Combine this with cloaking to reduce your active cross section, and the jump dispersion that already exists, and you'll be invisible to passives, and hard to detect with actives. But stay 'submerged' too long, and it'll kill you, and the mission tonnage spent on special engines and heatsinks means getting caught will leave you easily outgunned for the cost.

My hope is the heat mechanism and heatsinks provides an upper limit on how 'big' of a submarine you can feasible achieve at a tech level, between the cloaking and the tonnage limits. It also means that submarines don't become feasible until you develop some technology, so it is an investment to develop this stealth tech, atop the manufacturing costs of the special parts. I can't imagine thermal sinking hasn't been proposed before though, so I look forward to seeing the flaws in this

I would say that my main issues is somewhat something that you touch on... I would need these ships to be able to bypass JP defence grids without detection but be too expensive to fit entire fleets of them (unless you are mad that is).

In terms of having cloaked ships being able to take out targets I still think there are allot of options that can make this viable. Steve is looking at adding more morale effects to planets. Having civilian ships, mining stations invaded and fuel harvested destroyed or captured could severely impact colonies in this and even neighbouring systems.

Several cloaking ships could work together to attack a shipyard or maintenance facilities based in space. Think of them as Wolfpacks...

I really like the role-playing aspect of this.

If there were some technology that could mask a ships entire heat and TCS for a short time frome (when the submarine sumege) it would be a fine way to have them slip past a jump point garrison.

There could be some type of countermeasure for this, but it would have to be something like a missile that create some type of EMP like wave (think depth charge here) to have a chance to disrupt the cloak target. But a JP defence station could not use them all the time, you would only be able to use them when you have a decent idea where the cloaked ship is.

The cloak would actually sink the ship into the ether entirely and make it virtually invisible as long as it is in there.

Now... what should limit the ships use of this cloak where it slips into the ether for a short while entirely. I would suggest damage to be one such limitation and by extension a cost in supply which would make it prohibitive to use the cloak for very long. You could say that for every minute it is used it will cost you a certain amount of supply based on the ships size. You could argue that smaller ships cost less supply so it would be prohibitive with really large ships, now technology might improve on it though. But you might also say that ships can't be too small either or they can't fit the cloaking device properly (or some such)

What else... a ship could not use its own active sensors or fire-controls while in cloaking mode. The ship would have it's speed caped at a certain rate depending on the tech level of the cloak.

Anything else?

[Jorgen_CAB (OP)]

Oh... I also thin kwe would need to rename the old cloak technology to something else... I would go with "Stealth Hull Design" or something for the old cloaking technology. Reducing your TCS would still be very useful as would reduced thermal engines be, especially for these kinds of vessles.


To create a fully super stealthy "submarine" you would need very high tech as you need engine stealth, stealth hull, jump engines and the cloaking device... all of these things will take up space and have a huge cost... allot more so than submarines of today.

[Graham]

I am fundamentally against any transit method that ignores the limited connections, because it nullifies the strategic terrain of the galaxy. There is a reason stellaris was changed in order to limit transit to hyper-lanes. When your enemy can ignore terrain, it removes strategy, rather than increasing it. I have a counter-proposal however which I think could help provide the desired effect.

The basis is adding a variety to the "Size" of JPs. If we think of what jump points are in terms of wet navies, they are straits. But not all straits are the same width. Some are narrower than others. Additionally, while you can exit a JP at a distance from it, you have to be directly on top of it in order to enter. This means that even if you can sneak through one JP, it's very unlikely you will make it through the second. I would reform JPs such that each would have a "size" or maximum distance from the point where a military JD can be used to enter / exit. The techline which allows ships to appear further from the point would then instead simply act as a multiplier to this JP size, rationalising that the more powerful drives can break through further from the weakpoint.. This wouldn't have that much of an effect if you're trying to bring through a battleship, but it should make it so that small and or stealthed ships can more easily break out into the enemy trade lanes. However, they don't simply ignore the terrain, it's still very important.

[Jorgen_CAB (OP)]

I am fundamentally against any transit method that ignores the limited connections, because it nullifies the strategic terrain of the galaxy. There is a reason stellaris was changed in order to limit transit to hyper-lanes. When your enemy can ignore terrain, it removes strategy, rather than increasing it. I have a counter-proposal however which I think could help provide the desired effect.

The basis is adding a variety to the "Size" of JPs. If we think of what jump points are in terms of wet navies, they are straits. But not all straits are the same width. Some are narrower than others. Additionally, while you can exit a JP at a distance from it, you have to be directly on top of it in order to enter. This means that even if you can sneak through one JP, it's very unlikely you will make it through the second. I would reform JPs such that each would have a "size" or maximum distance from the point where a military JD can be used to enter / exit. The techline which allows ships to appear further from the point would then instead simply act as a multiplier to this JP size, rationalising that the more powerful drives can break through further from the weakpoint.. This wouldn't have that much of an effect if you're trying to bring through a battleship, but it should make it so that small and or stealthed ships can more easily break out into the enemy trade lanes. However, they don't simply ignore the terrain, it's still very important.

Given how active and passive sensor work these "zones" would have to be very big.

To be honest I like the cloaking idea better from a role-play perspective and it would achieve roughly the same thing.

Most ships are probably going to be detected at one time or another and they will also run out of supplies or whatever restrictions set on the cloaking device eventually anyway.

As it would only effect some ships not everyone in your fleet it really should not be a huge problem, especially not from a strategic sense as you are still locket to jump-point for the majority of your fleets.

Steve also mentioned that he might want to have some kind if cloaking effect on ships in some form... so this might be worth exploring. I certainly like the cloaking idea better than my first idea.

[Kristover]

Jumping on your idea, I would actually like to see some ability to 'stealthily' insert forces onto a planet - perhaps some concealment ability - so I could put a small special forces detachment on an enemy world which could then raid, or up the chance of insurgent formations being generated.

[Jorgen_CAB (OP)]

Jumping on your idea, I would actually like to see some ability to 'stealthily' insert forces onto a planet - perhaps some concealment ability - so I could put a small special forces detachment on an enemy world which could then raid, or up the chance of insurgent formations being generated.

With the cloaking ship idea such operations would technically be possible to perform.

I could see a cloaking ship carrying marines silently deploying some marines on a small military outpost, being able to bypass orbital defences and then slip away.

Or you could have an insurgency mechanic and you could designate your special forces as insurgent and help a colony organise its resistance.

There are many interesting role-play scenarios that I could find with such a mechanic.

[Kristover]

I'm really looking forward to the new ground combat system - but one of my questions/concerns is that combat becomes a large conventional force on force which is bloody and quick.  I like the idea of having special forces/insurgents on planets with long drawn out campaigns which can last weeks to months.  It just isn't the stealthy insertion of ships, but the ability of the ground formation to stay hidden on the planet.

[Profugo Barbatus]

I would imagine you would want some sort of unit that deals high collateral damage and is highly evasive to combat. Perhaps it can only be engaged by a limited force, or otherwise is relatively difficult to kill, but does very little unit to unit damage. So it'd be fairly ineffective as a planetary invasion unit when you want to capture a planet, unless you don't care at all about collateral. It wouldn't be able to fight other units an its high collateral makes it ineffective as a defensive unit as well, so its niche is specifically infantry that damage planets, anything from specialist commando strikes to terrorists and rebels causing chaos.

Most of these units would probably be around for only one combat round, if you had commando's show up on your world, your gonna start hunting for a stealth ship that can't stay stealthed for much longer, and it'll either have to leave the commando's or die with them if your not willing to evacuate them. Thats assuming evasion and luck keeps them alive past their first round.