C# Aurora Changes Discussion

[alex_brunius]

The Conv->TN Wealth bloom seems to be coming from the low production efficiency of Conventional Industry (1/10th CF, 1/10th Mine, 1/20th Fuel Refinery, etc.) when Wealth costs are still based on output.  If 50,000 workers generate 10 Wealth, but only mine 1 ton of TNE (and thus spend only 1 Wealth) due to the inefficiency of Conventional Industry, they generate 900% profits.

To me, it seems the solution is to charge Conventional Industry five-to-ten times the Wealth per ton of TNE mined, or constructed, or refined.  Pre-TNE empires would no longer be generating such enormous wealth in the first place, and wouldn't need their treasuries capped.

This is another good point. It doesn't make sense that Conventional Industry would be cheaper to run just because their output is lower...
It's supposed to represent less efficient factories after all, and it seems you nailed down one of the root causes of the early wealth buildup.

( Unrelated: I have the same issue with conventional tech rocket engines being cheap to run on fuel just because their thrust output is so low )

[TMaekler]

In regards to the Maximum Wealth Balance:
When I started my conventional games, I always did that with a 50% financial efficiency. That way not so much wealth (but still enough) accumulated. I therefore had to begin constructing financial centers at some point to not be overwhelmed by running costs later... found that solution quite ok.
It also opens the option to lay waste of a civilization by bombing away their financial centers... .

[bean]

I have some questions about how overhaul abandonment works.  It makes no sense to me that a ship which is, say, a week away from finishing up an overhaul would be essentially crippled for at least two or three weeks if I choose to close it up early.   The easiest way to solve this would be to have ships that are less than a month away from completing the overhaul simply start with an overhaul factor equal to the proportion of the last month of overhaul that they had completed.  By that point, they should have most of the major issues dealt with anyway.

Also, how do ships in overhaul behave when shot at? I know you can't give movement orders, but are they totally crippled, or will you accidentally handicap yourself when you abandon an overhaul upon the arrival of the bad guys?

[Steve Walmsley]

I have some questions about how overhaul abandonment works.  It makes no sense to me that a ship which is, say, a week away from finishing up an overhaul would be essentially crippled for at least two or three weeks if I choose to close it up early.   The easiest way to solve this would be to have ships that are less than a month away from completing the overhaul simply start with an overhaul factor equal to the proportion of the last month of overhaul that they had completed.  By that point, they should have most of the major issues dealt with anyway.

Also, how do ships in overhaul behave when shot at? I know you can't give movement orders, but are they totally crippled, or will you accidentally handicap yourself when you abandon an overhaul upon the arrival of the bad guys?

There is a difference between a ship completing an overhaul at maintenance facilities and a ship being put back together while underway. While I agree that a ship close to completing an overhaul is probably in a better situation than one half way through, I don't want to complicate a rule that is simple to understand and implement. You still have the option of waiting instead of abandoning if close to completion.

Ships in overhaul are stationary and the to-hit chance will reflect that.

[bean]

There is a difference between a ship completing an overhaul at maintenance facilities and a ship being put back together while underway. While I agree that a ship close to completing an overhaul is probably in a better situation than one half way through, I don't want to complicate a rule that is simple to understand and implement. You still have the option of waiting instead of abandoning if close to completion.

Granted there's a difference in closing up, but at the same time, there's also a huge difference between a ship who will be out of yard in a week and one who is going to be there for the next six months.  It's a change I'd like, but I can definitely see why you wouldn't want to implement it.

Ships in overhaul are stationary and the to-hit chance will reflect that.

But I ship I just pulled out of overhaul is also stationary, and it has no shields or guns.  A ship in overhaul has both, as far as I understand it.

[Steve Walmsley]

There is a difference between a ship completing an overhaul at maintenance facilities and a ship being put back together while underway. While I agree that a ship close to completing an overhaul is probably in a better situation than one half way through, I don't want to complicate a rule that is simple to understand and implement. You still have the option of waiting instead of abandoning if close to completion.

Granted there's a difference in closing up, but at the same time, there's also a huge difference between a ship who will be out of yard in a week and one who is going to be there for the next six months.  It's a change I'd like, but I can definitely see why you wouldn't want to implement it.

Ships in overhaul are stationary and the to-hit chance will reflect that.

But I ship I just pulled out of overhaul is also stationary, and it has no shields or guns.  A ship in overhaul has both, as far as I understand it.

Not in C# Aurora. It is just an expensive target. It wasn't very realistic in VB6 that a ship undergoing overhaul in 'dry dock' was combat capable. I'll add that information to the rules post.

Also, when a ship speed is checked for any reason, a ship in overhaul will be 0 km/s.

[the obelisk]

The wealth cap is fine for a stopgap solution for the sake of getting C# Aurora tested and released. For a longer term solution, we need to define exactly what wealth *is*

I agree with this sentiment.  I think that in the long run, a deeper economic model would be better, tracking the economic prosperity of individual colonies or populations, tracking TN minerals that exist in the civilian economy (possibly as a trade good only produced by mines(and possibly allowing the player to sell minerals to the civilian economy, to allow for something like a fully nationalised TN mining sector)), and offering the player a greater range of options in regards to how their economy operates.

[Hazard]

As Ground Combat turns are 6 hours long and Naval Combat turns can be as short as 5 seconds, this means that a weapon in general/naval unit bombardment with a 5 second reload can fire 4 320 times during a single ground combat turn.

It would hit the wrong target some 1 450 times in that time, which is really inconvenient when you are trying to hit ground units instead of just doing a planetary destruction bombardment, but it's a thing. It would seem to me that the ground combat timescale or the undirected naval bombardment timescale need to be reconsidered.

[Steve Walmsley]

As Ground Combat turns are 6 hours long and Naval Combat turns can be as short as 5 seconds, this means that a weapon in general/naval unit bombardment with a 5 second reload can fire 4 320 times during a single ground combat turn.

It would hit the wrong target some 1 450 times in that time, which is really inconvenient when you are trying to hit ground units instead of just doing a planetary destruction bombardment, but it's a thing. It would seem to me that the ground combat timescale or the undirected naval bombardment timescale need to be reconsidered.

C# ground combat is every 3 hours, while in VB6 is it every 5 days. Naval combat is the same in both cases, so the difference has already been reduced quite a lot. However, just as in real life, there is a difference between providing fire as needed to support relatively slow ground advances and simply blasting a whole area. It is like artillery support vs carpet bombing. The difference in Aurora vs real life is that for energy weapons there is no ammunition so you can constantly carpet bomb. That is why I introduced the rules on weapon failure and the rules on dust creation for energy weapon fire.

For example, you could fire a 5-second weapon (lets assume a 10cm laser costing 20 BP) 2160 times in 3 hours, which will cause a dust level of 324 and suffer 43 weapon failures at a cost of 860 MSP. If you are firing at fully fortified infantry, you will kill about 24 of them. You will kill far fewer on a planet with rough terrain. That is also assuming the planet isn't defended with Surface-To-Orbit weapons, so you are free to carry out the bombardment.

If you do decide to go ahead, then you are going to be hitting the installations and population because that is where the infantry is likely to be. Blasting fortified defenders out of a city is not usually pleasant for the city - its meant to be inconvenient. To shift determined infantry, you will likely need to send in your own or use nuclear bombardment and accept the massive collateral damage (assuming the point defence STOs don't shoot down the missiles).

The simple fact is that ground combat and naval combat operate on different timescales. Even when naval units provide support to ground forces in real life, that is not a constant barrage but usually to eliminate particular strong points. That is what the Orbital Bombardment Support is intended to simulate. If you want to forget ground combat and try to smash the defenders from orbit, you can operate on naval timescales because you don't have to wait for the ground forces. However, you have to accept that digging out the defenders by applying massive firepower is going to cause equally massive collateral damage.

Note that if you do engage identified STO units (because they fired at you), the chance to hit will be much higher because you know exactly where they are. It will 100% base instead of 6.7%, although still subject to terrain and defender fortification. That will all take place on naval timescales (like ships attacking a shore battery). I will cover that situation in a different rules post. Plus, all of this is subject to play test and may change as a result.

[Hazard]

Okay, that's much less bad than I feared it would be.

Of course, this just means that general bombardment is really not viable against heavily fortified targets. This is something we've already known for a while, that the best orbital bombardment targets are heavily armoured vehicles because they just can't hide. On the other hand, they're heavily armoured, so you'd use very different weapons against them, instead going for the biggest spinal weapons if you're talking energy weapons.

Otherwise the shot will likely bounce on the armour. I anticipate that as ground armour levels escalate and ground gun strength stagnates (relatively speaking) that ships will end up taking up the role of super heavy bombardment/super heavy anti vehicle weapons.


Oh, speaking of dust level? Will size of the planet affect the impact of the dust level? It doesn't in VB6 but that's not really a problem because the atmospheric terraforming mechanics don't care about planet size. But in C# planet size does affect atmospheric terraforming. This should probably also be a thing for planetary radiation levels.

[Steve Walmsley]

Oh, speaking of dust level? Will size of the planet affect the impact of the dust level? It doesn't in VB6 but that's not really a problem because the atmospheric terraforming mechanics don't care about planet size. But in C# planet size does affect atmospheric terraforming. This should probably also be a thing for planetary radiation levels.

That is a very good point which I hadn't considered. I wonder if radiation is affected in the same way (is it 'diluted' on large planets)? Fortunately, two of the people I recruited for my department at work are nuclear physicists who spent time in Chernobyl and Fukushima, so I will ask

[Whitecold]

I have a similar question about overall combat duration of ground combat turns: If you have a 6h per turn, base 20% per hit chance.
If you assume units can kill each other when hit, that means after 30h the formations caused 100% casualties. If you assume 2% kill chance from fortification/units surviving hits, you end up at 12.5 days until you reach 100% casualties.

That is nowhere near the time scale a rescue fleet could arrive, or you could bring reserves. I feel what is missing is a mechanic that gives you varying combat intensity. Ground combat usually happens in offensives, followed by periods of reorganization and stabilization where troops are sitting in place and not fighting much.

[alex_brunius]

As Ground Combat turns are 6 hours long and Naval Combat turns can be as short as 5 seconds, this means that a weapon in general/naval unit bombardment with a 5 second reload can fire 4 320 times during a single ground combat turn.

It would hit the wrong target some 1 450 times in that time, which is really inconvenient when you are trying to hit ground units instead of just doing a planetary destruction bombardment, but it's a thing. It would seem to me that the ground combat timescale or the undirected naval bombardment timescale need to be reconsidered.

C# ground combat is every 3 hours, while in VB6 is it every 5 days. Naval combat is the same in both cases, so the difference has already been reduced quite a lot. However, just as in real life, there is a difference between providing fire as needed to support relatively slow ground advances and simply blasting a whole area. It is like artillery support vs carpet bombing. The difference in Aurora vs real life is that for energy weapons there is no ammunition so you can constantly carpet bomb. That is why I introduced the rules on weapon failure and the rules on dust creation for energy weapon fire.

For example, you could fire a 5-second weapon (lets assume a 10cm laser costing 20 BP) 2160 times in 3 hours, which will cause a dust level of 324 and suffer 43 weapon failures at a cost of 860 MSP. If you are firing at fully fortified infantry, you will kill about 24 of them. You will kill far fewer on a planet with rough terrain. That is also assuming the planet isn't defended with Surface-To-Orbit weapons, so you are free to carry out the bombardment.

If you do decide to go ahead, then you are going to be hitting the installations and population because that is where the infantry is likely to be. Blasting fortified defenders out of a city is not usually pleasant for the city - its meant to be inconvenient. To shift determined infantry, you will likely need to send in your own or use nuclear bombardment and accept the massive collateral damage (assuming the point defence STOs don't shoot down the missiles).

The simple fact is that ground combat and naval combat operate on different timescales. Even when naval units provide support to ground forces in real life, that is not a constant barrage but usually to eliminate particular strong points. That is what the Orbital Bombardment Support is intended to simulate. If you want to forget ground combat and try to smash the defenders from orbit, you can operate on naval timescales because you don't have to wait for the ground forces. However, you have to accept that digging out the defenders by applying massive firepower is going to cause equally massive collateral damage.

Note that if you do engage identified STO units (because they fired at you), the chance to hit will be much higher because you know exactly where they are. It will 100% base instead of 6.7%, although still subject to terrain and defender fortification. That will all take place on naval timescales (like ships attacking a shore battery). I will cover that situation in a different rules post. Plus, all of this is subject to play test and may change as a result.

I suspected something like that on reading it. As long as failure chance and collateral damage is sufficiently high, and STO weapons sufficiently effective I don't think the different timescales cause a major problem either.

The only situation I can think of where it might be causing balancing issues is in the case of military only targets, like forward bases that lack civilian support or resources of value ( basically an attacker don't care about collateral damage ). But this is probable just a situation where strategy and doctrine needs to adapt such that military targets are defended by sufficient amounts of STO weapons and/or space weapons.

The key question in my mind here is: Is there ever going to be a point in going through the extra effort to try and invade a military only target using land forces? How do the chances look to be able to capture the installations intact.

That is a very good point which I hadn't considered. I wonder if radiation is affected in the same way (is it 'diluted' on large planets)? Fortunately, two of the people I recruited for my department at work are nuclear physicists who spent time in Chernobyl and Fukushima, so I will ask

I'm fairly confident that it's diluted by size, just consider that the no go areas around either site ( where radiation is lethal/unhealthy ) as a percentage of total available surface area on the planet is subject to change based on how large the planet would be. As long as early deaths by radiation is abstracted into the initial damage instead longer term casualties after people know where radiation should be very limited if we can assume they will seek to avoid radiated areas.

I also assume it would depend quite a bit on the severity of weather, climate and fauna on the planet, because those are known to spread around or concentrate radiation making it less predictable.

[Steve Walmsley]

The key question in my mind here is: Is there ever going to be a point in going through the extra effort to try and invade a military only target using land forces? How do the chances look to be able to capture the installations intact.

Yes, this is my main concern as well in terms of balance. I've tried to make that possible by having minimal collateral damage if you use relatively low level forces (infantry rather than heavy artillery) but I will monitor in play test and adjust that collateral damage accordingly. I considered an option for each side to accept a penalty in in general effectiveness if they wish to reduce collateral damage. Something on the lines of heavier weapons firing less frequently to simulate more careful target selection, but you can effectively do that already by moving those heavier weapons into rear echelon or not assigning artillery to support, so I probably won't bother.

[Steve Walmsley]

I have a similar question about overall combat duration of ground combat turns: If you have a 6h per turn, base 20% per hit chance.
If you assume units can kill each other when hit, that means after 30h the formations caused 100% casualties. If you assume 2% kill chance from fortification/units surviving hits, you end up at 12.5 days until you reach 100% casualties.

That is nowhere near the time scale a rescue fleet could arrive, or you could bring reserves. I feel what is missing is a mechanic that gives you varying combat intensity. Ground combat usually happens in offensives, followed by periods of reorganization and stabilization where troops are sitting in place and not fighting much.

With one post arguing ground combat takes too long and another arguing it doesn't take long enough, I must be somewhere in the ball park

The are two considerations that will slow it down. Firstly, when you run out of supply, you only attack at 1/4 normal and with longer engagements, the combatants will run out of supply. I might even reduce the 25% rate depending on play test. When new supplies arrive, that simulates an offensive. The defender could hoard supplies when the attacker is out of supplies to await such an 'offensive', or take advantage while it has supplies and the other side doesn't (counter-attack).

The second consideration is that your combat example only lasts 12.5 days if one side doesn't take casualties at all (also assuming the 2% is accurate and no one runs out of supplies). With both sides taking casualties, it reduces each sides ability to harm the other so it will take a lot longer than 12.5 days if the sides are relatively even.

If one side has a large superiority and the terrain is favourable (Desert Storm), then it could be over relatively quickly. If the planet is jungle mountain and you are attacking fully fortified infantry or static weapons, that 20% chance to hit is now 0.14% (plus you have to penetrate armour and kill them). You are going to be there for months or even years and you will run out of supply at some point as well, which will slow it down even more. Plus, given the long time frame, both sides probably will reinforce.

With the variety of terrain, supply constraints and the scope for many different situations, we should have some relatively fast ground combat and some that will require many years to resolve.