Semi-Official 6.x Suggestion Thread

[Haji]

If I remember damage calculations correctly, any hit has a chance of destroying a slipway and that's it. As the shipyard had a single slipway it was all or nothing - any random hit could either destroy it completely or do absolutely nothing.

[alex_brunius]

Shipyard damage calculation needs adjustment. I'm attacking an outpost (both sides are player controlled) with a forty thousand tonne shipyard complex, numerous forty thousand tonne maintenance space stations (civilian unarmored constructs) and a couple of twenty thousand tonne warships. The shipyard took twice as many hits as the warships and five or six times as many hits as the space stations and is still standing. And since it has only a single slipway it's not even damaged in any way.

Here is the relevant wiki page:

http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=Shipyards#Shipyards_in_Combat

What strenght were the warheads?

[Haji]

The warheads were strength 5, the shipyard had a single slipway of twenty thousand tonnes of capacity, which translates to 2.5% chance of it being destroyed. I've launched 120-150 missiles (I'm not exactly sure because part of the first wave was intercepted, so the thirty two missiles in it may have not reached the yard; the other one hundred and twenty hit), so more than enough. That's why I'm saying the calculations need adjustment - it's far too random and can lead to shipyards being ridiculously resilient to damage.

[alex_brunius]

I agree that it's random, but I actually like the aspect that you can't reliably destroy a huge shipyard with peashooter missiles.

If you want to reliably destroy it you will need a large warhead missile or torpedo developed for this purpose, and speed can be almost nothing so works for planet/base/satellite busting too. Quite cool IMO! 

But lets do the math for your specific case.

2.5% chance to destroy = 97.5% chance to not destroy.

0.975^120 = 4.8% chance the Shipyard was not destroyed.
0.975^150 = 2.2% chance the Shipyard was not destroyed.

The numbers do suggest you were just pretty unlucky ( between 1 in 20 to 1 in 50 unlucky ).

[Haji]

I agree that it's random, but I actually like the aspect that you can't reliably destroy a huge shipyard with peashooter missiles.

But that's the thing - the yard wasn't all that big. I mean there were fifteen commercial stations of almost the same size and an armored cruiser half the size and all of those took much less hits than the yard to destroy. Heck, considering how the calculations are done the number of missiles necessary to destroy five space stations or two warships wasn't enough to even slow down the production! While I understand making normal damage calculations for a yard could be difficult, I think the probability should be based on the total amount of damage done in a 5 sec tic, rather than any specific missile (in which case the damage would be not 5 but 160 as I was using 32 missile salvos).

[alex_brunius]

How hard a shipyard is to destroy compared to the warships it can build can be extremely different depending on tech level and design of the warships.

If you make a warship of 20k ton with 50% tonnage as armor at medium tech levels you can get something like 2200 Armor strength (Laminate Composite Armor).

That warship could survive 300 of those strength 5 warheads fairly reliably. While the shipyard have 0.5% chance to survive the same barrage.

Statistically you could destroy at least 5 shipyards/slipways like that with all those missiles.


The real issue here IMO is that shipyard strength don't scale with tech level, while ships do. So at low tech levels shipyard feels very hard to destroy while at high tech levels they pop like popcorn.

[sloanjh]

While I understand making normal damage calculations for a yard could be difficult, I think the probability should be based on the total amount of damage done in a 5 sec tic, rather than any specific missile (in which case the damage would be not 5 but 160 as I was using 32 missile salvos).

This is a good idea.  As you say, trying to track partially-damaged yards would be a nightmare for Steve to implement, but this would probably only be moderately difficult

That being said, have you seen a SY get destroyed?  This sounds like it could be a bug rather than luck....

John

[Haji]

That being said, have you seen a SY get destroyed?

I've lost my patience and deleted it, so in this particular campaign I have yet to see a yard getting destroyed. I did destroy a lot of them in my previous one though, but I don't remember whether or not it was the same game version.

[namamono]

I have made similar post at topic,7504. 0, but according to Erik's advice I am writing on this thread.

I am Namamono, a Japanese player of your great game, Aurora.

I am a big fan of Aurora 4X and posting replays on my blog.
I have received some good feedback from readers, and some seemed to be interested in Aurora.
But some of them seemed to be discouraged to play this great game because English seems to be a significant barrier for them.

So I would like to suggest addition of multilingual support.
I am ready and motivated to provide translation itself, but it must need program modification as Erik mentioned. . .

[Haji]

I'm not sure whether this should be here or in bugs, but I think decision tree of the civilian shipping lines should be tweaked. I'm currently playing a very small nation (below 100 million people) that is supposed to rely on huge merchant marine (there are several other nations with whom I have open trade agreements so in theory it should work) but half of the ships that are being purchased by those shipping lines are colony ships - despite the fact that I'm moving no people whatsoever, despite having three colonized planets.

Overall those shipping lines existed for over twenty years and made the most money by moving passengers, much smaller amounts of money by moving cargo, very little money on fuel and no money whatsoever on moving colonists. Despite that almost no new passenger liners are being built, the number of fuel harvesters is somewhat large and the number of freighters and colony ships owned by them is pretty much the same. Which means the lines are buying ships they should know will provide no profit whatsoever, while ignoring the most profitable vessels.

[Vandermeer]

I think the "Unload All Installations" button for freighters should be renamed into simply "Unload All", as that is what it really does. It is quite misleading, and despite knowing this, I constantly make the mistake and issue Unload All Minerals and Unload Ship Component xyz sometimes, which leads to a stopping error and queue deletion when there was nothing to unload anymore.

[83athom]

I think pod launchers would be an excellent addition to the game. They would be 0.2 size with a fire rate of 1/ReloadRate. They would have an internal supply of missile, but cannot be reloaded by any magazine on the ship, but they would be able to be reloaded by either a hangar or a special module that could be fitted to coilers (about 100HS or 150HS), however when a ship is reloading it cannot fire any weapons (except possibly CIWS modules). The hangar would reload at a flat 1hr per pod, but the module would reload at a minute per missile per pod with the number of modules affecting the per pod on a 1:1 ratio. The ship could stop reloading at anytime and any missiles filled would be filled at a per pod basis (filling pod by pod), and only the pods that were completely filled could be used to fire, and any pod not filled would dump their missiles into space (the ones that were being filled at time of separation, not ones that were partially full when reloading started). The pod launchers would be researchable after box launches at 1.5x or 2x the research points, and the module after the pod launchers and Magazine Feed System Efficiency 85%(debatable). I also think that it would be cool to be able to put both the pod launcher and the box launcher on a turret (not at the same time), and doing do would give the missiles a slight boost to chance to hit (based on turret rotation).

The size would be something like this; ((NoMissiles*MSP[in HS])*0.2LauncherSize)+1. Example of 30 size3 missiles being; ((30*0.15)*(0.2*3)+1=3.7HS

Reloading from the module would be something like this; 60sec*NoMissiles*(Pods/Modules) with (pod/modules) being at minimum 1

The firing interval being; Standard Fire Rate at Reload Rate/Reload Rate. Example; a size3 with a reload rate of 5 would be 4 seconds (20sec/5)

Second time I had to do this because I accidentally exited the browser.

[GreatTuna]

So, if I understand you correctly, what are you suggesting is like box launcher, but instead of one missile there will be internal magazine which this "pod launcher" reloads from...
What's the point of it? This kind of launcher will either almost completely replace conventional launchers (if it is better than them), or not get used at all (if it is worse than them), because this IS conventional launcher, only with internal magazine instead of external.

The bonus from "missile launcher turret" looks wrong, because to-hit chance is determined not by FC, not by launcher, but by missile itself.

Also, your suggested formula for size gives result which is even less than size of missiles themselves. (30*0.15 = 4.5 HS versus 3.7 HS).

----

Well, this idea could work, but in slightly another way.
For example:
Not reduced size, but FULL size of launcher.
Better firing rate than conventional launchers, but not the 1/ReloadRate; its too fast. Maybe 0.5x reload time?
Reloading from hangar\maint facilities only; reload rate is 60s*<total mass of missiles IN MSP>, so for example, 30 missiles of size 3 will take 90 minutes to get reloaded. Missiles are reloaded one by one OUTSIDE the ship, but INSIDE hangar\maint facility, so interrupting reload will just leave the magazines empty, and missiles are added to the ship which was performing reloads or, if there's no space for them, simply dropped out into space.
Missiles are stored inside internal magazine with fixed\researchable efficiency, but not more than 80% (20% of mass required for internal reloading system to keep firing rate).
And formula for mass is:
(<amount of missiles>*<size of missile in HS>)/<magazine efficiency>+<launcher size>
Example for 30 sz3 missiles:
(30*0.15)/0.8+3=8.625 HS

This is only an example, but in this way either pod launchers and conventional launchers will have their own purpose.
Pod launchers give an ability to quickly unload large amount of missiles at the cost of less missiles per ship compared to conventional launchers.
Conventional launchers stay the same.

[83athom]

Yah, that is more like what I meant to put. I was constantly trying to change it and forgetting to put it down in the other places I was talking about it ie. the fire rate (One place I put 1/Reload Rate and another I put Standard at reload rate/Reload rate). I was thinking of a missile system where you fire full broadsides then GTFO or be attached to every ship in the empire without needing to be designed as a missile ship (ships in the halo universe as an example, and kind of the reason I suggested this, for my next empire), and the pod system sounded like what I was thinking (rocket pods on modern helicopters and fighters). The size I think should be, as you said but a little modified, <amount of missile>*<missile size in HS>+(0.2<launcher size>/<magazine feed efficiency)+1. So our example 30 sz3 with 80% efficiency would be (30*.15)+(.6/.8 )+1=6.25HS, so for an AMM pod with 10 sz1 would be (10*.05)+(.6/.8 )+1=2.25HS. And the fire rate would still be <Standard Reload of X Efficiency>/<X Efficiency>. First example fires one every 4 sec (5 salvos every 4 increments), the second fires every 2 sec (5 salvos every 2 increments). I still stand by most of what I previously had though.

[GreatTuna]

halo universe

Heh, I was expecting that.
Anyway, what you're suggesting is imbalanced, because it has better fire rate AND better missiles per HS count than basic launchers.
Just compare your "pod launcher" and conventional launcher (with external magazines, of course), 30 missiles, size 3.
Pod launcher:
ROF: 5 salvos in 4 increments
Size: (30*0.15)+(0.6\0.+1 = 6.25 HS
Conventional launcher:
ROF: 4 salvos in 4 increments
Size: (30*0.15)\0.99+3 = 7.55 HS

As you can see, the pod launchers are better in every aspect, meaning that the moment player gets pod launchers, he can completely forget about conventional launchers, and that's obviously not good.

I won't even ask on how "5 salvos in 4 increments" thing should look like.