Small Items

[ZimRathbone (OP)]

not really a bug, more of an exploit but...

I suggest allowing a maximum of 4 small items of any one type on a unit.

consider the following ships

Malcanthet - Big class Cruiser    10000 tons     814 Crew     1821 BP      TCS 200  TH 270  EM 360
2700 km/s     Armour 3     Shields 12-300     Sensors 25/30/0/0     Damage Control 1-1     PPV 36
Flag Bridge    Replacement Parts 6    

Ion Engine E6.4 (10)    Power 54    Efficiency 0.64    Signature 27    Armour 0    Exp 3%
Fuel Capacity 210,000 Litres    Range 141.8 billion km   (607 days at full power)
Gamma R300/16 Shields (6)   Total Fuel Cost  96 Litres per day

Twin 10cm C3 Ultraviolet Laser Turret (3x2)    Range 120,000km     TS: 13400 km/s     Power 6-6     RM 4    ROF 5        3 3 3 3 2 2 1 1 1 1
20cm C4 Ultraviolet Laser (2)    Range 256,000km     TS: 3200 km/s     Power 10-4     RM 4    ROF 15        10 10 10 10 8 6 5 5 4 4
Fire Control S04 128-3200 (1)    Max Range: 256,000 km   TS: 3200 km/s     96 92 88 84 80 77 73 69 65 61
Fire Control S04 32-12800 (1)    Max Range: 64,000 km   TS: 12800 km/s     84 69 53 37 22 6 0 0 0 0
Tokamak Medienne Reactor  PB-0.9 (4)     Total Power Output 28    Armour 0    Exp 3%

Active Sensor S5-R0.2/100 (1)     GPS 1     Range 10k km    Resolution 0.2
Active Sensor S10-R20/100 (1)     GPS 200     Range 2.0m km    Resolution 20
Thermal Sensor TH5-25/100 (1)     Sensitivity 25     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  25m km
EM Detection Sensor EM5-30/100 (1)     Sensitivity 30     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  30m km

and

Malcanthet - Small class Cruiser    10000 tons     820 Crew     1876 BP      TCS 200  TH 270  EM 360
2700 km/s     Armour 3     Shields 12-300     Sensors 25/30/0/0     Damage Control 1-1     PPV 36
Flag Bridge    Replacement Parts 6    

Ion Engine E6.4 (10)    Power 54    Efficiency 0.64    Signature 27    Armour 0    Exp 3%
Fuel Capacity 210,000 Litres    Range 141.8 billion km   (607 days at full power)
Gamma R300/16 Shields (6)   Total Fuel Cost  96 Litres per day

Twin 10cm C3 Ultraviolet Laser Turret (3x2)    Range 120,000km     TS: 13400 km/s     Power 6-6     RM 4    ROF 5        3 3 3 3 2 2 1 1 1 1
20cm C4 Ultraviolet Laser (2)    Range 256,000km     TS: 3200 km/s     Power 10-4     RM 4    ROF 15        10 10 10 10 8 6 5 5 4 4
Fire Control S04 128-3200 (1)    Max Range: 256,000 km   TS: 3200 km/s     96 92 88 84 80 77 73 69 65 61
Fire Control S04 32-12800 (1)    Max Range: 64,000 km   TS: 12800 km/s     84 69 53 37 22 6 0 0 0 0
Tokamak Medienne Reactor  PB-0.9 (4)     Total Power Output 28    Armour 0    Exp 3%

Active Sensor S5-R0.2/100 (1)     GPS 1     Range 10k km    Resolution 0.2
Active Sensor S10-R20/100 (1)     GPS 200     Range 2.0m km    Resolution 20
Thermal Sensor TH5-25/100 (1)     Sensitivity 25     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  25m km
EM Detection Sensor EM5-30/100 (1)     Sensitivity 30     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  30m km

The second ship is marginally more expensive  in terms of build points (3.02%) & yard time (3.08%), uses fractionally more Duranium (39.7 tons - 4.89% increase) and Mercassium (15 tons - 41.67% increase) but has a much better survival rate due  to a 40.3% increase in HTK - all of these in non-combat systems due to the simple expedient of replacing each full size Life support, Engineering & Fuel with 5 of the small versions - each of which has 1 HTK.

I havent actually tried this in combat yet (I will tomorrow) but it looks like a bit of a problem.

Solutions are either to have "fractional" HTK for small systems (best from a RL POV, but perhaps not from a coding one) or as suggested above limit the numbers so that the effect remains small

Slainthe

Zim

[Father Tim]

I'd prefer to see small systems take 0 Hits To Kill - that is, roll damage allocation as normal, but if a small system is destroyed, roll again.  Continue until a regular system is destroyed.

Gunboats & fighters should be fragile.

[sloanjh]

IIRC, small systems can't be hit, i.e. they don't contribute to hits-to-kill.  My recollection is that the exploit actually goes the other way - you can ensure an "emergency reserve" of fuel that can't be destroyed by putting at least one small tank on a ship.

John

[Steve Walmsley]

IIRC, small systems can't be hit, i.e. they don't contribute to hits-to-kill.  My recollection is that the exploit actually goes the other way - you can ensure an "emergency reserve" of fuel that can't be destroyed by putting at least one small tank on a ship.

That's correct. I should modify the code so that the HTK for items less than one HS shows as 0 instead of one to avoid the confusion

Steve

[ShadoCat]

IIRC, small systems can't be hit, i.e. they don't contribute to hits-to-kill.  My recollection is that the exploit actually goes the other way - you can ensure an "emergency reserve" of fuel that can't be destroyed by putting at least one small tank on a ship.

I agree with Father Tim here, this seems a bit "game-y".

This will also help alleviate some of the issues revolving around mounting fighter weapons on ships.  If they get scraped easily, it removes an additional advantage.

If it wouldn't be a coding nightmare, I'd be be tempted to put small weapons outside of ship armor.  If you want them under the armor then make them take up a minimum of 1 HS (and 1 HTK).  

I'd apply this to other items as well. In the example above, the light small craft quality take would have a chance of rupturing if the cruiser too a sufficiently good hit (even if the tank itself wasn't directly touched).  You could armor the tank but that would increase it's bulk and cost.

That way, small weapons/items are either cheap and easy to toss onto a design or they are built to military specs and heavier and more expensive.

I don't know what this would do for your version of the LACs though (I haven't played with those yet).

[Steve Walmsley]

I'd prefer to see small systems take 0 Hits To Kill - that is, roll damage allocation as normal, but if a small system is destroyed, roll again.  Continue until a regular system is destroyed.

Gunboats & fighters should be fragile.

That's a good idea. I have changed system design so that systems smaller than 1 HS are now 0 HTK systems. I have also modified the damage allocation code so that if a 0 HTK system is destroyed, the damage is not reduced and a new damage allocation roll is made. All of that was relatively easy. A slight problem is that the damage allocation charts created for each design are based on the size of systems and use relative size to decide which internal system is hit. Fractional systems are ignored for purposes of the DAC as they don't fit into the integer-based hit allocation. To get around this I will change the DAC creation code to treat all systems as a minimum of 1 HS. Although this makes them more likely to get hit than their size would suggest, they will be destroyed without reducing damage and therefore will not affecting the chance of a 'normal' system getting hit. It should also reflect their relative fragility.

Steve