Refits

[Kurt (OP)]

Okay, I’ve been thinking about things in my campaign, and I have some questions for people that are interested.  

Anyone who has run a campaign with multiple races for any length of time probably recognizes my problem, which is to ensure that my different races remain different, instead of merging into mirror images of each other.  My experience is that if I don’t watch this very carefully, my races will start becoming more and more alike in their ship designs and strategies, which perhaps makes sense given that the same person is playing all of them.  The remedy is to develop different but viable (hopefully) strategies for each race and then try to stick to those strategies, modifying for experience and various internal pressures.  Still, in the pressure of actually moving the game forward, it becomes too easy to lose focus and with the loss of focus comes a drifting of strategies towards one theoretical ideal.  

One of the areas I had hoped to differentiate my governments was refit strategies.  Aurora allows for several different strategies, IMO, and I had hoped to explore some of these.  I have noticed, though, that it is very easy to go overboard on refits, and unless you are careful you can easily spend more than the ship originally cost on a single refit.  Additionally, a series of refits can easily add up to far more than the ship originally cost, or the cost of a newer ship, without any one refit exceeding that cost.  

What got me thinking about this was the fact that as the fleets in the 6 Powers Campaign have grown over time they seem to reach an equilibrium state periodically, because of the need for a series of refits to keep up with advancing technology.  These refits take up more and more of the nation’s slipways, and until the # of slipways is expanded, or the efficiency is improved, no new ships can be produced because the yards are busy with constant refits.  I realized that a power that either didn’t do refits, or one which did only limited and occasional refits, would be able to build a lot of ships, albeit most of those ships would be outdated.  

Over time all of my nations have fallen into the same basic refit strategy, which is as follows: New technology judged to be critical, such as engine speed improvements, will necessitate fleet-wide refits to include the new tech, while tech of lesser importance or higher cost might be reserved for new builds only.  This strategy results in several different versions of the same basic design being active at once, which doesn’t seem to be a problem as long as fleet speeds are maintained and salvo timing capabilities remain the same.  

This strategy has led to a situation that I think is reflected somewhat in real life.  The bigger nations have continuously upgraded their ships with more modern technology, although the upgrades have been somewhat selective and not all ships got the newest technology.  However, as time has passed the shipyard capacity of the major powers has increased, the technology has increased, and the requirements for their ships has increased, which has led to a lot of pressure to increase the size of the ships.  Refits can only do so much, so there is a trend to design newer, larger ships that incorporate all of the latest tech, so that capabilities that just can’t be included in the smaller ships can be realized in the larger ships.  

The thing is, as I said above, this strategy has led to all nations performing a series of refits to remain current, with the total cost of the refits in shipyard time and resources costing far more than the original cost of the ship, or its replacement by a newer version, in spite of the fact that no one refit exceeded that cost.  There is nothing inherently wrong with this, and I am not advocating for a change here.  I am just wondering what strategy other people use.  What refit cost do you think is within reason?  Has anyone tried a “no refit” strategy of building a large fleet without upgrading and scrapping the oldest ships?  Is this strategy even viable within Aurora, where slower ships are punished grievously?  

Kurt

[ZimRathbone]

I tried the "No Refit" strategy a few versions back, and found that it had some distinct benefits, particularly in ensuring slipways remained (relatively) free for new construction.

It did tend to result in 4-5 different classes per role, but ususally only 1-2 would be in the "Active" battlefleets, older designs would get farmed out to colonies as local defence, and occasionally I had a queue of ships waiting to get scrapped (which somtimes gave rather odd results).  On one occasion I even sold a small fleet to a (lower tech) ally.

It did help that this particular race was also trying a no missile/no fighter tech scheme (although THAT decision was fatal as it turned out).

I may try it again when I upgrade to 3.2 ( I think the current campaign has gone as far as it can go).

[jfelten]

Not being experienced with the combat system yet, would you mind explaining why "slower ships are punished grievously"?  Couldn't an old missile ship be reloaded with modern missiles and at least have the same offensive punch as newer designs?  Where does the speed come in to play?  Getting in to favorable position?  Running away from enemy missiles in flight?  

I saw somewhere else that the only winning strategy was missile ships with a large percentage of tonnage dedicated to engines.  I kind of consider a game system broken when there is only a single winning strategy.  Given the wealth of beam weapons in this game, it would be a damn shame if fast missile ships were the only way to play.

[dammrebel]

I kind of consider a game system broken when there is only a single winning strategy. /quote]

Well i wouldn't go that far, sometimes the advent of new tech compltely makes the old status quo obsolete. Take for example the invention of the airplane. There is a reason no one builds battleships anymore. To argue that any tech build strat should be viable is to argue that a battleship heavy naval strategy sholud have been just as effective as a carrier group strat in WW2.

[jfelten]

But if missiles are the only winning strategy, why research anything else other than for PD?  Just research missile tech from day one.  It sounds like research points put in any of the beam weapons is wasted, except what is needed for PD.  I think it would make for a more interesting game if a beam only race was viable.  But again, I've not actually played beam vs missile battles yet so I'm as much asking the vets as anything here.  

I don't want to get in to a big wet navy discussion/debate here, but actually BB's are still viable today.  It is just that no navy currently goes to the expense.  The U.S. fielded two refitted WWII BB's until the early 90's and probably would have kept them going longer if the USSR hadn't collapsed then.  They were covered in launchers and their WWII belt armor would likely bounce most modern anti ship missiles.  The guns of course were extremely unlikely to range on an enemy ship today (but if they did, they would blow a modern essentially unarmored ship away) but were extremely effective shore bombardment weapons.  Nothing short of nuclear (which they could also fire) has that impact.  Interesting information on the debate here.:  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Sta ... ort_debate

[Erik L]

If you read some of Kurt's fiction, especially the Six Powers, you'll see that in the face of "modern" PD, missiles are ineffective. So the only alternative in that case is beams, which PD cannot stop.

[Father Tim]

I think it's more accurate to say that for any tactic X in Aurora, there is a countermeasure Y which renders it ineffective.  Thus the only strategy that dominates is the old adage, 'Know thy enemy'.

To answer the original post, I generally go the 'no refit' route, though I sell or scrap truly obsolete wrships.  One of the major ways in which I seem to vary from most of the fiction here is the rarity with which I reassign shipyards to a new type of ship (almost never).  I typically have one freighter yard, one passenger (cryo transport) yard, one or two survey yards, one troop transport / terraformer yard (about the ony one that does get reassigned) and a handful of warship yards.  While individual designs get updated regulary - and the yards building them get switched to the 'new' version of the ship - I very rarely change the basic ship type.

I'm also fairly ruthless in enforcing a 'fleet speed' - every military design is forced to meet a certain minimum, and the fleet speed is periodically updated (increased) in response to other races' deployments.

[Steve Walmsley]

Not being experienced with the combat system yet, would you mind explaining why "slower ships are punished grievously"?  Couldn't an old missile ship be reloaded with modern missiles and at least have the same offensive punch as newer designs?  Where does the speed come in to play?  Getting in to favorable position?  Running away from enemy missiles in flight?  

Faster ships have a better chance to dodge incoming fire, be it missiles or beams. Faster missiles are harder to shoot down. When firing missiles or turreted beam weapons, the speed of the firing ship is irrelevant. When firing non-turreted beam weapons, a ship firing at a faster-moving target is at a disadvantage because it is harder for the ship to get a shot.

I saw somewhere else that the only winning strategy was missile ships with a large percentage of tonnage dedicated to engines.  I kind of consider a game system broken when there is only a single winning strategy.  Given the wealth of beam weapons in this game, it would be a damn shame if fast missile ships were the only way to play.

I am not sure where you saw that. It isn't true within the game and as far as I know it isn't reflected in the after-action reports either. Speed of the firing ship is irrelevant for missiles, which is why stationary planet-based missile launchers can be so effective. Speed is more important for beam-equipped ships who want to close with their targets.

With regard to the effectiveness of missiles. Just as in real life, they can be very effective In the right circumstances. In deep space against an opponent without effective point defence, they are especially useful. However, they have several major disadvantages as well. The main one is that you have to build the missiles and transport them to the ships who need to use them. There is no magical CFN in Aurora. Missiles are large in terms of magazine storage space and expensive in terms of production capacity. Often in the fiction, a race will use its entire supply of missiles in one battle and then their missile ships are useless until they build more. They can also be intercepted. In the last battle in my current campaign one race fired two waves of two hundred missiles each at a task force that included six 6000 ton escort warships. Not a single attacking missile reached its target. The PDCs that fired the missiles were then completely defenceless. Missiles don't work in nebulas, so again in my current campaign the Commonwealth is faced with an heavily populated alien planet in a nebula system adjacent to Sol. The Commonwealth relies completely on missiles so is unable to fight the aliens in their home system even if they wanted to. Finally, a ship with normal missile launchers cannot generate anything close to the rate of damage that a beam ship can, so in a point blank jump point defence beam ships are much better. You can use box launchers on the missile ships to generate higher rates of fire but they are less effective in terms of the total number of missiles carried and they can only be reloaded at a fleet base or by a carrier. In short, missiles are a very useful weapon in Aurora and as in real life they should be part of a nation's strategy, even if only used for point defence systems. They are not the only winning strategy and could lead to an early demise if relied upon too heavily.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley]

Interesting topic. Refits need a lot of thought in Aurora. I have tried to reflect real life as best I can so I hope the most common refits will be upgrading electronic systems, weapon systems or sometimes engines but probably not all at the same time as it would likely be cheaper to build a new ship. You can also, as in real life, refit to a different hull size but take that too far and building new becomes cheaper. The Commonwealth recently researched ion engines so I am refitting the old colony ships as the biggest part of their cost is their cryo modules and the engine upgrade is much cheaper than new ships. The main cost of the older freighters is their engines so a refit is not economically viable. Therefore I am building additional new freighters and keeping the older freighters in service for shorter or less important tasks. For warships, some of the upgrades are OK because I am just updating their engines but for others that also require new launchers and new electronics it just isn't worth it so they are being scrapped. Out of date warships are often just expensive targets. Although another option I sometimes use in Aurora that reflects real life is to upgrade part of an older ship's systems to keep it useful while not upgrading everything as that would too expensive. For example, I might update a fire control system so the ship can fire newer missile types but not bother with the engines and then assign the ship to guard duty for less important colonies.

Steve

[jfelten]

I saw somewhere else that the only winning strategy was missile ships with a large percentage of tonnage dedicated to engines.  I kind of consider a game system broken when there is only a single winning strategy.  Given the wealth of beam weapons in this game, it would be a damn shame if fast missile ships were the only way to play.

I am not sure where you saw that. It isn't true within the game and as far as I know it isn't reflected in the after-action reports either. Speed of the firing ship is irrelevant for missiles, which is why stationary planet-based missile launchers can be so effective. Speed is more important for beam-equipped ships who want to close with their targets.

Steve

Hey Steve, it's been awhile.  
I'm glad to hear that.  I was getting the impression there was only one viable tactic.  I am pleased that that impression was false.

[Steve Walmsley]

I saw somewhere else that the only winning strategy was missile ships with a large percentage of tonnage dedicated to engines.  I kind of consider a game system broken when there is only a single winning strategy.  Given the wealth of beam weapons in this game, it would be a damn shame if fast missile ships were the only way to play.

I am not sure where you saw that. It isn't true within the game and as far as I know it isn't reflected in the after-action reports either. Speed of the firing ship is irrelevant for missiles, which is why stationary planet-based missile launchers can be so effective. Speed is more important for beam-equipped ships who want to close with their targets.

Hey Steve, it's been awhile.
I'm glad to hear that.  I was getting the impression there was only one viable tactic.  I am pleased that that impression was false.

Hi - good to see you here on the forums. Missiles do look impressive at first glance. The ability to smite your foes at long range with decent damage is very useful but using missile ships in a campaign reveals their weaknesses, which are often logistical rather than directly related to combat. Good point defence is essential and relatively easy to create even if you decide to go down a route that concentrates on beam weapons. To overcome good point defence, the attacker is forced to use a lot of missiles and that only exacerbates the logistical problems. Fire control and sensors are very important in Aurora too, both for attack and defence.

Steve

[Kurt (OP)]

I tried the "No Refit" strategy a few versions back, and found that it had some distinct benefits, particularly in ensuring slipways remained (relatively) free for new construction.

It did tend to result in 4-5 different classes per role, but ususally only 1-2 would be in the "Active" battlefleets, older designs would get farmed out to colonies as local defence, and occasionally I had a queue of ships waiting to get scrapped (which somtimes gave rather odd results).  On one occasion I even sold a small fleet to a (lower tech) ally.

It did help that this particular race was also trying a no missile/no fighter tech scheme (although THAT decision was fatal as it turned out).

I may try it again when I upgrade to 3.2 ( I think the current campaign has gone as far as it can go).

Ver interesting.  I was thinking about adopting this strategy for one of my governments, and I think I'll go ahead and do it.  Now which one...

[Kurt (OP)]

Not being experienced with the combat system yet, would you mind explaining why "slower ships are punished grievously"?  Couldn't an old missile ship be reloaded with modern missiles and at least have the same offensive punch as newer designs?  Where does the speed come in to play?  Getting in to favorable position?  Running away from enemy missiles in flight?  

I saw somewhere else that the only winning strategy was missile ships with a large percentage of tonnage dedicated to engines.  I kind of consider a game system broken when there is only a single winning strategy.  Given the wealth of beam weapons in this game, it would be a damn shame if fast missile ships were the only way to play.

Well, understand that this is just my opinion, so take it for what it is worth.  Having said that, speed is life.  While it is possible to beat a faster enemy, it is much harder to do unless your weapons out range them as well.  The last time I seriously looked at this situation was under a previous version of Aurora, before Steve greatly extended missile ranges, so this equation has changed somewhat, but I believe the basics still hold true.  You can get away with having slower ships if you have longer ranged weapons, but if you have slower ships and shorter ranged weapons, you will likely win battles only under certain special conditions.   If you are slower and have longer ranged weapons then you may still lose is the enemy can avoid or negate your weapons fire long enough to get into range of their weapons.  If you are faster and longer ranged, there is little the enemy can do to you as long as you don't make a mistake.  

That is why I say the side with slower ships is punished.  It is not always true, but good as a rule of thumb.  

Kurt

[Kurt (OP)]

But if missiles are the only winning strategy, why research anything else other than for PD?  Just research missile tech from day one.  It sounds like research points put in any of the beam weapons is wasted, except what is needed for PD.  I think it would make for a more interesting game if a beam only race was viable.  But again, I've not actually played beam vs missile battles yet so I'm as much asking the vets as anything here.  

I don't want to get in to a big wet navy discussion/debate here, but actually BB's are still viable today.  It is just that no navy currently goes to the expense.  The U.S. fielded two refitted WWII BB's until the early 90's and probably would have kept them going longer if the USSR hadn't collapsed then.  They were covered in launchers and their WWII belt armor would likely bounce most modern anti ship missiles.  The guns of course were extremely unlikely to range on an enemy ship today (but if they did, they would blow a modern essentially unarmored ship away) but were extremely effective shore bombardment weapons.  Nothing short of nuclear (which they could also fire) has that impact.  Interesting information on the debate here.:  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Sta ... ort_debate

Beams can come in handy in certain situations.  In ambushes, nebulas, or where everyone starts at close range (earth orbit?), or when one side has expended their missiles, for example.  Having said that, I think missiles are clearly the dominant weapon in Aurora.  They are not the only strategy, IMO, but it would take more than a little effort to build a non-missile using fleet that could succeed against a missile dominant fleet.  

Kurt

[Kurt (OP)]

If you read some of Kurt's fiction, especially the Six Powers, you'll see that in the face of "modern" PD, missiles are ineffective. So the only alternative in that case is beams, which PD cannot stop.

I don't know about "ineffective", but good, layered point defense can certainly reduce the effectiveness of incoming missile salvoes.  Such a defense needs a lot of thought, though.  You have to have anti-missile sensors with a decent range, anti-missiles with a good to-hit percentage and good range, deep magazines, and last-ditch point defense beam weapons.  

Such defenses can be overwhelmed, though, but large enough salvoes.  Large salvoes can be generated by using "box" launchers, which can be achieved at a relatively low tech level, complicating point defense greatly.  But the problem for the missile launching fleet is then that they have expended their missiles and are then toothless.  If a non-missile race survives the alpha-strike, the missile using race is in trouble if they are slower.  If the missile race uses up its missiles but destroys the non-missile race in the alpha strike then it is okay, but might have a problem for the next battle.  

This is a very complex situation.

Kurt