Author Topic: Replacing PDCs  (Read 82073 times)

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Offline TheDeadlyShoe

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #270 on: November 01, 2017, 02:42:01 PM »
impressed by the changes. they look good overall. I think they will be less complicated than people think since the huge chart of possibilities will be more constrained and comprehendable in the design screen.

I suggest also making ground units unfairly good at beam combat. they should get similar range and targeting bonuses as PDCs do now, if not better - enough to compete with 1-2 generations ahead of their tech level.  And they should be relatively cheap for their effectiveness.  The ideal result of this scenario is to make planets scary to engage in close assault with a main fleet.  This would encourage the use of dropships and armored assault ships that make quick runs into a planet to combat drop their units, and then the survivors withdraw to where the main fleet is holding outside range.  Or you can Star Wars it and have a massive combined arms assault.

I am still very concerned that it will just be obviated by naval bombardment though.  the material and facility losses involved in blowing away enemy ground units - even with missiles - just isn't very high.  so:  bombard until you know you can easily win the ground fight, just like you do now.  No practical amount of ground unit CIWS will stand up against box launchers, just how like beam PD can't do it on ships.  If the planet is defended by AMM stations with ammunition remaining it is by definition too dangerous to assault and the ground combat is irrelevant.

P.S. What about our ICBM bases :(

are they gonna become Static Bombardment units?
« Last Edit: November 01, 2017, 02:58:00 PM by TheDeadlyShoe »
 

Offline 83athom

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #271 on: November 01, 2017, 04:16:43 PM »
P.S. What about our ICBM bases :(

are they gonna become Static Bombardment units?
Yup, which is one of the reasons I've been saying to keep PDCs in some form.
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Offline ardem

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #272 on: November 01, 2017, 07:44:33 PM »
With the removal of PDC there is a few extra things I like to see to counter the bombardment by missiles.

By the looks of things a navy could sit out of range of the planet and bombard the forces on the planet with size 1 missiles, which out any strike back which the PDC, with there huge armour ability had the protect and the ability to fire back. I think Orbital starbases are hugely vulnerable. Perhaps you can add to the building slots like factories and so forth "Defensive platforms", which are purely phalanx style defensive guns which shoot down inbound missiles, or if you do not go that way perhaps make some of these mega robots with defensive abilities such as they are able to effectively mount Anti missile defensive, maybe some of these Robot could mount shield generators.

I think the planet need a way to counter the AI in missile bombardment, the AI currently does this, as it is come within missile range it then bombard the planet. I like the idea like in Starship troopers where a Navy flies by and drops pods down to the planet and then moves away with possible losses. Planet capture should be a risky procedure, until there is a reduction in the planet defenses. I would like to see beam or railgun fighters useful in a ground role. It would give a reason to develop them.

I would of liked PDC to stay, because they are really just a static fortress, with the inclusion of all the other things. I did not find them exclusive of each other. I would like to see options in the ground combat, in what your attack goals are. EG reduction of orbital defences, reduction of industry, destroy stockpiles.

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Any chance planetary water value can influence certain effectiveness of units, such as if it a higher water content world it is harder for larger units, due to marshlands, forests for higher oxygen content planets. Where as desert worlds or lower oxygen content worlds hinder standard light troop units. etc. That way there is no one size fits all planetary invasions.

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Wow I cannot wait for the planetary invasion updates even these minor changes you suggested makes me want to not glass planets.
« Last Edit: November 01, 2017, 07:49:43 PM by ardem »
 

Offline swarm_sadist

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #273 on: November 02, 2017, 05:07:51 PM »
Yes, but each round is going to be relatively expensive.  Not as much as a missile, but a lot more than a gun round.
I'm not sure where you are getting that. A railgun round is just a rod of metal. All of the round's energy is kinetic. There is no explosive filler, no primer, no fuse, no guidance system (unless you want it), and you really don't even need a ballistic cap either.

They are safer to store as they require no magazines of gunpowder;
They are lighter and take up less space than conventional rounds;
They are simple to make, even to high quality standards;
They are cheap to manufacture in massive quantities;
They have the same striking power as a cruise missile;
They are almost impossible to shoot down;

On the negative side, you need a nuclear reactor or equivalent to power a gun, and the gun will go through barrels like crazy. Oh, and the round going mach 10+ through air looks like a giant fireball.
 

Offline TheDeadlyShoe

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #274 on: November 02, 2017, 05:23:08 PM »
With the removal of PDC there is a few extra things I like to see to counter the bombardment by missiles.

By the looks of things a navy could sit out of range of the planet and bombard the forces on the planet with size 1 missiles, which out any strike back which the PDC, with there huge armour ability had the protect and the ability to fire back. I think Orbital starbases are hugely vulnerable. Perhaps you can add to the building slots like factories and so forth "Defensive platforms", which are purely phalanx style defensive guns which shoot down inbound missiles, or if you do not go that way perhaps make some of these mega robots with defensive abilities such as they are able to effectively mount Anti missile defensive, maybe some of these Robot could mount shield generators.

I think the planet need a way to counter the AI in missile bombardment, the AI currently does this, as it is come within missile range it then bombard the planet. I like the idea like in Starship troopers where a Navy flies by and drops pods down to the planet and then moves away with possible losses. Planet capture should be a risky procedure, until there is a reduction in the planet defenses. I would like to see beam or railgun fighters useful in a ground role. It would give a reason to develop them.
Beam fighters should work fine for supporting ground combat by acting as a bombardment unit, per the rules posted earlier.

Beam fighters actually work in current Aurora, it's just that they cant conduct strikes because that's suicide. They have to be used as detachable beam mounts for larger vessels. Works best with Battlestar doctrine.

I agree about missile bombardment. I don't think the ground combat rules will matter as is.  Fleet salvos will overwhelm any reasonable defense. Could make TN missiles ineffective against planets with atmosphere and/or magnetic field.  Except maybe orbital bombs, which at a minimum have the weakness of requiring a ship to close to 0km.  Actually that would work really well, since if you try to do a Box Launch salvo of orbital bombs you have to take the risk of having your box launchers detonated by beam fire on the way in. 

 

Offline Hazard

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #275 on: November 02, 2017, 05:31:44 PM »
IIRC ground units are undetectable from space if not actively engaged in combat. Like Surface to Orbit guns firing at ships. Without that you can do a generic bombardment, but that is, well, a generic bombardment, you are going to blow up a lot of things, and enemy ground units are probably not going to be a lot of it as facilities and population absorb the hits, along with the occasional mountain, ocean, river and desert.
 

Offline TheDeadlyShoe

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #276 on: November 02, 2017, 05:37:56 PM »
That's only for beam weapons.  Missiles bombardment will work 'as it is now'- presumably targeting the Ground Forces contact.
« Last Edit: November 02, 2017, 05:40:20 PM by TheDeadlyShoe »
 

Offline Hazard

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #277 on: November 02, 2017, 08:13:13 PM »
That's only for beam weapons.  Missiles bombardment will work 'as it is now'- presumably targeting the Ground Forces contact.

Except that, unless engaged, there is no Ground Forces contact to shoot at. There is a planet to shoot at, sure, but how much of the planet are you willing to write off while you bomb its defenders into submission?

That's as true of missiles as it is of beam weapons.
 

Offline TheDeadlyShoe

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #278 on: November 02, 2017, 08:20:17 PM »
Where are you getting that? I went back through all of Steve's posts in this thread and unless i made an embarrassing mistake I can't find anything about ground forces targets being invisible.  Only energy weapons are mentioned as being incapable of direct targeting - at least of general targets, as anti-space weapons are still explicitly targetable by energy weapons.

 

Offline bean

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #279 on: November 03, 2017, 07:47:43 AM »
I'm not sure where you are getting that. A railgun round is just a rod of metal. All of the round's energy is kinetic. There is no explosive filler, no primer, no fuse, no guidance system (unless you want it), and you really don't even need a ballistic cap either.
No, for two reasons:
1. Simple metal rods are of limited use against most targets.  Maybe I kill one vehicle, but the rest of the rod's energy is expended digging a hole in the ground behind it.  That's fine in a tank, but not particularly good for artillery.  And tanks usually have some sort of explosive round, too.
2. I want to actually hit something at long range.  That means I need a guidance system, period. 
Railguns are interesting and powerful.  But they aren't a panacea, and they will require sophisticated ammo.
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Offline alex_brunius

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #280 on: November 03, 2017, 08:59:41 AM »
No, for two reasons:
1. Simple metal rods are of limited use against most targets.  Maybe I kill one vehicle, but the rest of the rod's energy is expended digging a hole in the ground behind it.  That's fine in a tank, but not particularly good for artillery.  And tanks usually have some sort of explosive round, too.
2. I want to actually hit something at long range.  That means I need a guidance system, period. 
Railguns are interesting and powerful.  But they aren't a panacea, and they will require sophisticated ammo.

Do you seriously think the US Navy would invest billions into railgun research to replace guided cruise missiles if the tech as you claim were useless as artillery and inaccurate?
 

Offline bean

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #281 on: November 03, 2017, 09:21:05 AM »
Do you seriously think the US Navy would invest billions into railgun research to replace guided cruise missiles if the tech as you claim were useless as artillery and inaccurate?
1. For long-range land attack, they absolutely are looking at guided projectiles.  For other missions like point-defense, maybe not.  But there is no way you can use a weapon with the sort of range we're talking about without either guidance systems or a much larger damage radius than this provides.
2. Different kinds of targets require different damage profiles.  Against ships, planes, and missiles, unitary KE is great.  It's OK against bunkers, and terrible for infantry in the open.  This is a solvable problem, but it does compromise 'the projectiles are just chunks of metal'.
3. This isn't a cruise missile replacement.  They're looking at a range of 110 nm, which is an order of magnitude lower than Tomahawk.  It's a fire support weapon, not a strike weapon.  It also has roles in air and missile defense. 
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Offline 83athom

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #282 on: November 03, 2017, 09:42:55 AM »
I'm not sure where you are getting that. A railgun round is just a rod of metal. All of the round's energy is kinetic. There is no explosive filler, no primer, no fuse, no guidance system (unless you want it), and you really don't even need a ballistic cap either.
But that rod is primarily made of tungsten for its density and heat resistance. And some of the railgun shells they are making right now are quite advanced (GSP guidance systems, a flak like secondary mode, few other interesting features). DEfinately cheaper than a missile, yet not as cheap as "conventional" shells.

They are safer to store as they require no magazines of gunpowder; They are lighter and take up less space than conventional rounds;
They aren't really "lighter", they just take up less volume.
They are simple to make, even to high quality standards; They are cheap to manufacture in massive quantities;
Eh... not really "simple" to make because of the materials and extras.
They have the same striking power as a cruise missile;
True, yet that striking power will be focused to the point of impact while the cruise missile will have warheads to spread that power out in an area.
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Offline alex_brunius

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #283 on: November 03, 2017, 10:09:17 AM »
But there is no way you can use a weapon with the sort of range we're talking about without either guidance systems or a much larger damage radius than this provides.

Ofcourse there is...

What you need to understand is that inaccuracy depends on unplanned deviation during projectile travel which scales linearly with travel time. ( deviations in course both from a moving target and on the projectile itself ).

If a railgun projectile travels at 5km/s compared to a battleship shell at 500m/s this means the projectile can travel 10 times as long distance before the inaccuracy from outside influence becomes identical.

This is further helped by the railgun shell spending less time at lower altitude in "thicker" atmosphere where the deviations are higher then at higher altitudes ( for example wind or air/particle resistance ).

If you fire in space and your projectile travel at 50000km/s then the projectile spends less then a millisecond traveling through the thicker atmosphere compared to a battleship shell spending up to 30 seconds or more traveling meaning it's over 30,000 times more accurate...

The limitations on accuracy instead depends on the quality of the weapons which we can also assume are thousands of times better then today.

Further orbit isn't as far away as you would think... The ISS orbits at 300-400km up compared to Battleship guns max range of 30-40km, that's just 10 times as far which compared to the other numbers involved here is nothing.

An Aurora 4x tech level railgun should technically have no problems at all hitting an ant from orbit assuming it knew exactly where to aim.
« Last Edit: November 03, 2017, 10:14:34 AM by alex_brunius »
 

Offline TCD

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Re: Replacing PDCs
« Reply #284 on: November 03, 2017, 10:41:42 AM »
I am still very concerned that it will just be obviated by naval bombardment though.  the material and facility losses involved in blowing away enemy ground units - even with missiles - just isn't very high.  so:  bombard until you know you can easily win the ground fight, just like you do now.  No practical amount of ground unit CIWS will stand up against box launchers, just how like beam PD can't do it on ships.  If the planet is defended by AMM stations with ammunition remaining it is by definition too dangerous to assault and the ground combat is irrelevant.

I wonder if this will actually be true? If static ground units with orbital weapons are cheap enough then you could mass a huge number of these on important worlds. As I recall there are already changes made that make box launchers less efficient than in the current game which would favor ground PD.

The only other addition you would need is for new planetary ECM and ECCM installations, which I think would make a lot of sense. With the new rules on missile ECCM (has to be on the missile to change to-hit chance) a high level planetary ECM installation could be a major obstacle to missile bombardment.