Thinking Out Loud

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I am considering making some significant changes to Aurora, based on work I have done for Newtonian Aurora. I'd thought I'd mention them here first to gauge the reaction.

One of the interesting things about testing Newtonian Aurora is the degree to which you have to worry about fuel. While I don't want introduce any Newtonian movement to Aurora I do think spacecraft/missiles should have to worry more about fuel. At the moment it is often a small percentage of hull size - around 1-2% - and I think it should be much higher. Not the 40-50% of some of the designs in NA but perhaps 10-20%. NA compensates for increased fuel requirements by making Sorium in gas giants much more common and decreases the size/cost of fuel harvesters. There are also larger and proportionately less expensive fuel storage systems for ships. If I did this I might add a 'no fuel' option in the same way as 'no maintenance'. Forward bases and tankers would become much more important with this fuel model.

NA also has increased requirements for crew quarters as the current Aurora requirements are very low, often less than 1% of hull size. Again this should be much higher in reality. If I introduce the rules about manning levels mentioned in another thread, it would make sense to have more realistic life support and crew requirements. I would also look at the existing crew requirements for various systems and try to make them more reasonable. Some type of automation technology could be introduced.

The changes mentioned above would result in generally larger ships than now in order to have the same capabilities. Therefore I would increase the shipbuilding rates to compensate. I would also remove the geometric cost multiplier for jump drives so you could build larger jump drives more cheaply. Efficiency would remain the same.

Steve

[backstab]

Sounds good

[Five]

For the fuel, i don't know, i guess i always pictured that the space ships would go to some form of reactor design for power and propulsion...at least larger ships. Kinda of like how the US Carriers are nuclear while the Destroyers are gas turbine. And isn't the Cassini satelite nuclear..but not sure thats used for propulsion in any way...prob not. Guess i just envisioned larger ships going that way...some reactor tech were fuel is measured in years. Fighters/missles i agree may use more fuel.

As for more manning, i agree more is needed. Again looking at a Carrier, fully loaded with an air wing it is around 5000-6000 personnel, and i would imagine a space ships will be alot larger then it. Even with automation it would need alot of people to run and maintain.

-Five

[Corik]

I like Five's thinking. Maybe 2 types of propulsion. A conventional one, using sorium, very dependant on refuelling, and an advanced one, much more costly and bigger, using another mineral, more scarce, only usable on very big ships but with less need for resupply.

You're gonna hate me for using again the Stargate reference, but... kinda the difference between a F-301 and a Daedalus Battlecruiser. While the F-301 uses conventional propulsion and can run out of fuel easily, the Daedalus BC have a more advanced Naquadah powered propulsion.

[UnLimiTeD]

Nice ideas; Well, obviously, I like NA as well.
For the fuel; Maybe you could have fuel use dependent on speed %, so if you go 10% top speed, you only use 5% fuel.
That would allow ships to do what they can do in Aurora, get somewhere with low fuel use by investment of time.
Alternatively, a look at Star Ruler might be of note, they got a special form of scoop there that grants low amounts of thrust without fuel, (potentially more in nebulae?), but it's a cheap excuse of an engine otherwise.
You could also generally make engines weaker, and add a thruster capability that works like an additional Fuel efficiency modifier, thus making fuel more important only in combat situations or when time is critical.

[MehMuffin]

Maybe we could have 'Pressurized fuel tanks' that hold larger amounts of fuel in smaller spaces, but will explode violently similarly to magazines.

[Rastaman]

- Do you plan to bring over the Newtonian engine rules? I mean the freely designable engine size, with larger engines being more efficient, no differentiation between commercial and military engines etc.

- Jumps use fuel/energy? With gates or without.

- 3 types of fuel:
Neutronium-> Fission fuel
Sorium-> Fusion fuel
Energy-> Antimatter fuel (energy can be provided by solar arrays <- put an accelerator facility in solar orbit)  

- I'm all for making things more visible - all systems use energy when in use and need power from the reactor which in turn needs fuel to run.

- Less crew requirements & automation but more volume per person. No or very small crew requirement for fuel tanks! Non-combat ships have only a third because no 8 hour shifts.

- Life support: Uses energy and supplies? Tech increases efficiency.

[sloanjh]

Two thoughts:

1)  Would you change the size breaks for fighter/GB/Corvettes (bridgeless ships) etc?  I was originally going to say you'd need to up the threshold for bridgeless ships, e.g. to 1200 tons, but while typing this I realized that the other way to go would be to introduce fatigue rules:  the difference between a fighter and a frigate is that the frigate has ~3x the crew-per-system that a fighter does, and that the frigate has crew quarters.  So to get away from the arbitrary 1000-ton discontinuity you'd probably want to set things up so that if the crew, on average, is on duty more than e.g. 40% of the time (which is a bit higher than 3x but a bit lower than 2x) then fatigue levels begin to rise.  Similarly, if the crew doesn't have enough "resting space" then the fatigue levels also rise.  So for a fighter you just need 1 shift of crew and a place for them to work at their station; for something like a gunboat (i.e. short duration littoral warfare) you'd need 3x crew per station but only 3x (or even 5x) the space (which would induce fatigue levels to start to grow after a few days), and for a frigate (i.e. blue water, arbitrarily long deployment) you'd need 3x crew and 5x (or even 10x) the space.

2)  This has the potential for a LOT of micromanagement, both at the design level and at the operational level (if you introduce fatigue levels).  In essence you'd be re-introducing readiness states if you go with fatigue rules, and the fatigue rules are what I think make the crew quarters change worth it.  Similarly, you already need to pay a lot of attention to fuel in Aurora if you use GB/FAC and/or fighters - I'm a bit concerned that requiring even more planning would lead to the same sorts of problems we saw with maintenance.  It certainly shouldn't be the case that a tanker uses 70% of the fuel on itself during a deployment, nor that a carrier can't refuel its fighters from on-board resources (which is almost the case now).  Although maybe that means that fighter/FAC combat radii would go WAY down and we'd get as big a tactical shift as when you introduced realistic missile engines.

So I'm torn.  I don't see a lot of need to disrupt the current game playability balance just to make crew quarters bigger.  OTOH if you put in fatigue that would put a real continuum behind things like the readiness/surprise rules in SF, and the "Below 1000 tons you don't need a bridge" rule in Aurora.

John

[Zed 6]

Just a first impression, by increasing fuel consumption, the smaller ships are going to have really ultra short range trips. Giant battleglobes full of fuel or full of attack ships or both to get to the next system to attack.

[Thiosk]

I find myself jamming in fuel and crew as an afterthought, for sure.  My strategy of ship design is to pick what I want on board, approximate the crew and fuel, then add engines until its to fleet speed. 

If you require that crew and fuel take extra space, I pose that something different has to happen with certain weaponry-- specifically beam weaponry-- because it takes a LOT of oomph to push a ship to combat range, and requires a LOT of shields, fuel, armor, and the weapons that make getting to range worth while. 

Spinal mounts!

hehe

[Moonshadow101]

I like the idea of making fuel supplies a bit less trivial. Right now, any planet with non-trivial fuel production generally produces enough to supply your whole fleet forever. If gas giants are going to become more meaningful, however, then I suggest that fuel harvesters be made a bit more workable. The default/conditional orders for them never quite work.

I also like the idea of making large jump drives a bit less absurdly huge and expensive. 

And, if I can bang this drum just once more, I'm quite fond of the NA energy weapon overhaul. Wink wink.

[dgibso29]

I agree with both Five and John.

Especially about crew fatigue. That opens up a whole new level of detail; shore leave, crew rotation, etc.

[Rastaman]

Forward bases and tankers would become much more important with this fuel model.

The question is, what is a forward base? Just drop fuel on a planet? Shouldn't there be some building involved, like a PDC?

In addition, isn't it better if refueling takes some time? Cargo handling with fuel? Some kind of facility, infrastructure or equipment in naval bases?

[Corik]

Would be a nice time to allow the construction of star bases. Maybe orbiting a gas giant, defending the sorium extraction operations and allowing the fleet to refuel and resupply.

Countless possibilities.

[dgibso29]

Yes, I am 100% for Starbases. Perhaps they could be a 3rd build option (PDC/Ship/Starbase)? Built via industry? Could also tie in to the crew fatigue idea, possibly allowing ships to "dock" and have crew leave?