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Posted by: sloanjh
« on: June 13, 2009, 11:15:48 AM »

Three things:

1)  When a "retool for" or "construct/refit to" is given to a SY, Aurora checks (and requires) that the design is locked.  The reason for the construct/refit check is that a SY can build a ship it's not tooled for.

2)  When a design is unlocked, Aurora gives a warning if the class is "in use", where "not in use" is defined as nothing depending on that class, i.e. no ships of that class (including civies), no refits to or builds of that class in progress, and no SY tooled to produce the class.

3)  (I think this one is already planned.)  When an attempt is made to delete a class design, a check is made to ensure that it's not in use.

The reason for #1 and #2 is that I often get new tech before I have a chance to put a designed class into production.  #1 and #2 allow updating an unused design without the risk of unintentionally changing one that's already in use.  The reason for "warning only" is to allow players to clean up some oversight in a class for which e.g. retooling has already started.

It would also be nice to have similar safeguards for tech systems (e.g. weapons, sensors, etc), but I suspect that's a lot harder to get right.

John
Posted by: Erik L
« on: June 10, 2009, 02:10:35 AM »

Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
Quote from: "adradjool"
Something that just came to mind. How about an order in the TG screen for a ship to picket a jp, planet, moon, whatever, that would automatically change the ship's speed to 1 to reduce it's thermal signature? It seems there is quite a call for pickets and something that common should have a general order for it.
I have added this for v4.1. It is just the same as a Move To order, except that speed is changed to 1 km/s on arrival. Don't forget to change the speed if you want to go anywhere else :)

Steve

Maybe put a notification in if there's a conditional order that modifies the fleet speed. It'd bite to go quiet and then next time increment shoot back up to max speed
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: June 09, 2009, 09:27:17 PM »

Quote from: "adradjool"
Something that just came to mind. How about an order in the TG screen for a ship to picket a jp, planet, moon, whatever, that would automatically change the ship's speed to 1 to reduce it's thermal signature? It seems there is quite a call for pickets and something that common should have a general order for it.
I have added this for v4.1. It is just the same as a Move To order, except that speed is changed to 1 km/s on arrival. Don't forget to change the speed if you want to go anywhere else :)

Steve
Posted by: schroeam
« on: May 31, 2009, 05:50:44 PM »

Something that just came to mind. How about an order in the TG screen for a ship to picket a jp, planet, moon, whatever, that would automatically change the ship's speed to 1 to reduce it's thermal signature? It seems there is quite a call for pickets and something that common should have a general order for it.

Thanks,

Adam.
Posted by: sloanjh
« on: May 28, 2009, 05:36:04 PM »

Quote from: "welchbloke"
I like slonjh's idea about multiple generations, it is somethat has a basis in reality.  Airforces and navies around the world fill their hardpoints/magazines with multiple generations of a particular missile family.

That's actually what made me think of it - I remembered reading about the various "blocks" (IIRC) of SM2-MR in the US Navy inventory.  Same thing happens with fighters, actually - I think Phantoms were already up to "J" in Vietnam and might have ended up at "M' or "N".

John
Posted by: welchbloke
« on: May 28, 2009, 12:40:26 PM »

Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
Quote from: "sloanjh"
Introduce missile design "series" and "generations", e.g. "Sparrow-A", "Sparrow-B", "Sparrow-C", etc. such that Aurora knows that these all fulfill the same role in a load-out, and that the Sparrow-C is the most advanced version.

The idea here is to cut back on micro-management of (default) missile load-out of ships.  The problem comes as new missile designs are introduced to replace obsolete ones - there usually aren't enough of the new time fill the magazines of all ships.  For example, in my campaign, I've got Tomahawk-A, Tomahawk-B, and Tomahawk-C.  If I could specify that my destroyers loaded "30 Tomahawk" (note the lack of a generation specifier), then all I would need to do is specify "load ordinance" and Aurora could use as many Tomahawk-C as available, followed by Tomahawk-B and Tomahawk-A.  It Could also help during the missile design phase, since there's no (or at least I haven't found a ) "copy design" button.  If instead there was a "new generation" button on Tomahawk-C, Aurora could use the same masses in Tomahawk-D - all I'd have to do is adjust them if I wanted e.g. to trade off speed for range in the "D" generation.
An interesting idea. I have already added functionality for v4.1 that will fill magazines with alternative missiles of the same size if the standard loadout is unavailable so I could modify it for this idea. I'll handle this when I start going through the suggestion thread properly.

Steve
I like slonjh's idea about multiple generations, it is somethat has a basis in reality.  Airforces and navies around the world fill their hardpoints/magazines with multiple generations of a particular missile family.
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: May 27, 2009, 03:45:27 PM »

Quote from: "sloanjh"
Introduce missile design "series" and "generations", e.g. "Sparrow-A", "Sparrow-B", "Sparrow-C", etc. such that Aurora knows that these all fulfill the same role in a load-out, and that the Sparrow-C is the most advanced version.

The idea here is to cut back on micro-management of (default) missile load-out of ships.  The problem comes as new missile designs are introduced to replace obsolete ones - there usually aren't enough of the new time fill the magazines of all ships.  For example, in my campaign, I've got Tomahawk-A, Tomahawk-B, and Tomahawk-C.  If I could specify that my destroyers loaded "30 Tomahawk" (note the lack of a generation specifier), then all I would need to do is specify "load ordinance" and Aurora could use as many Tomahawk-C as available, followed by Tomahawk-B and Tomahawk-A.  It Could also help during the missile design phase, since there's no (or at least I haven't found a ) "copy design" button.  If instead there was a "new generation" button on Tomahawk-C, Aurora could use the same masses in Tomahawk-D - all I'd have to do is adjust them if I wanted e.g. to trade off speed for range in the "D" generation.
An interesting idea. I have already added functionality for v4.1 that will fill magazines with alternative missiles of the same size if the standard loadout is unavailable so I could modify it for this idea. I'll handle this when I start going through the suggestion thread properly.

Steve
Posted by: sloanjh
« on: May 26, 2009, 06:26:06 PM »

Change tractor rules so that the engine power used to calculate speed is Max(A,B), rather than A+B (where A and B are the total engine power ratings of the tug and tow, respectively).

I've encountered a (higher-tech) race with beam-armed warships with a speed of ~5700 and huge active search radius.  My current missile-armed warship design can only do 3333 - it's ~2 generations of engine tech behind.  I recently upgraded engine tech, and will soon have tugs built of the same mass as my missile ships and which can do 9000.  If I have these new tugs take my missile ships under tow, then they'll have a combined speed of ~6167, which means they'll be able to dance away from the bad guys while plinking them with missiles.  This feels like a bit of an exploit - it basically allows tugs to be exchangable engine pods.  By only using the engines of one ship, the exploit gets weakened to something that feels more appropriate - the combined speed in that case would be 4500.

I don't feel strongly on this one either way, btw - it's just a thought.

John
Posted by: Sotak246
« on: May 26, 2009, 06:24:47 AM »

I really like this idea for missle generations.  I have been wanting something like this but having trouble coming up with a good plan to put forward, Sloanjh came up with a great one.  I really  like the "new generation" button idea.

Mark
Posted by: sloanjh
« on: May 25, 2009, 04:56:47 PM »

Introduce missile design "series" and "generations", e.g. "Sparrow-A", "Sparrow-B", "Sparrow-C", etc. such that Aurora knows that these all fulfill the same role in a load-out, and that the Sparrow-C is the most advanced version.

The idea here is to cut back on micro-management of (default) missile load-out of ships.  The problem comes as new missile designs are introduced to replace obsolete ones - there usually aren't enough of the new time fill the magazines of all ships.  For example, in my campaign, I've got Tomahawk-A, Tomahawk-B, and Tomahawk-C.  If I could specify that my destroyers loaded "30 Tomahawk" (note the lack of a generation specifier), then all I would need to do is specify "load ordinance" and Aurora could use as many Tomahawk-C as available, followed by Tomahawk-B and Tomahawk-A.  It Could also help during the missile design phase, since there's no (or at least I haven't found a ) "copy design" button.  If instead there was a "new generation" button on Tomahawk-C, Aurora could use the same masses in Tomahawk-D - all I'd have to do is adjust them if I wanted e.g. to trade off speed for range in the "D" generation.

John
Posted by: welchbloke
« on: May 24, 2009, 03:14:49 PM »

Quote from: "sloanjh"
Quote from: "adradjool"
Steve,

How about the ability to change the task force speed through the task force orders list?  Give the option of "% full speed" or "specific kps".  That way we can set up close approach orders without having to go back in to change the TF speed.  It would be especially useful if you want to move to a jump point, change speed to 1 (minimize Thermal Sig) then jump and be as invisible as possible while your passives gather all the data they can.  Just a thought I had while trying to do that very thing... funny how that works out  :)

Adam.

I'd like to empatically second this one.  This is the sort of thing I do all the time, and it's a bit of a pain to give orders to a waypoint, wait for the message that the ship has arrived, adjust the speed, give new orders, and repeat.

John
You can add me to the list of people asking for this feature.
Posted by: schroeam
« on: May 20, 2009, 08:14:12 PM »

Steve,

How about having the commanders who are part of teams displayed as assigned instead of unassigned?

Adam.
Posted by: sloanjh
« on: May 20, 2009, 11:11:09 AM »

Add ability to filter out obsolete designs when selecting a second stage in missile design

John
Posted by: sloanjh
« on: May 14, 2009, 08:04:39 PM »

Quote from: "adradjool"
Steve,

How about the ability to change the task force speed through the task force orders list?  Give the option of "% full speed" or "specific kps".  That way we can set up close approach orders without having to go back in to change the TF speed.  It would be especially useful if you want to move to a jump point, change speed to 1 (minimize Thermal Sig) then jump and be as invisible as possible while your passives gather all the data they can.  Just a thought I had while trying to do that very thing... funny how that works out  :)

Adam.

I'd like to empatically second this one.  This is the sort of thing I do all the time, and it's a bit of a pain to give orders to a waypoint, wait for the message that the ship has arrived, adjust the speed, give new orders, and repeat.

John
Posted by: schroeam
« on: May 14, 2009, 02:12:26 PM »

Steve,

How about the ability to change the task force speed through the task force orders list?  Give the option of "% full speed" or "specific kps".  That way we can set up close approach orders without having to go back in to change the TF speed.  It would be especially useful if you want to move to a jump point, change speed to 1 (minimize Thermal Sig) then jump and be as invisible as possible while your passives gather all the data they can.  Just a thought I had while trying to do that very thing... funny how that works out  :)

Adam.