v2.2.0 Changes Discussion Thread

[Destragon]

Also... for the PD distribution... the absolute simplest solution is an "auto" function that just distribute all of the shots as evenly as possible starting with the highest hit ratio first. So if you have 10 shots that hit on 30% and 10 that hit on 10% and 5 incoming missiles you have two shots of 30% and two shots of 10% on each missile.

This way you have to do no math and you should get a reasonably decent result from the shooting.

I at least would like to avoid specifying how many shots per missile. This work well for missiles as there you have several turns to intercept, but here you only get one chance so every time you intercept anything you have to calculate how many missiles there are and how many shots you have available. There should not be much need to do this calculations... but there could be an option to do so if someone want to do that.

The way I read the rules, I think this is what you get if you set all the FCs to max shots per missile and all vessels to the same defense priority, and prioritize the FCs in descending order of hit chance.

Yes, that's correct.

Then I think all is on order... and we don't have to worry much about it to be honest.

In your example the high hit chance and low hit chance weapons have the same amount of shots. You get more varied results if the difference in the number of weapons you have is higher, like in Iceranger's examples:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=13098.msg164472#msg164472

[Iceranger]

Also... for the PD distribution... the absolute simplest solution is an "auto" function that just distribute all of the shots as evenly as possible starting with the highest hit ratio first. So if you have 10 shots that hit on 30% and 10 that hit on 10% and 5 incoming missiles you have two shots of 30% and two shots of 10% on each missile.

This way you have to do no math and you should get a reasonably decent result from the shooting.

I at least would like to avoid specifying how many shots per missile. This work well for missiles as there you have several turns to intercept, but here you only get one chance so every time you intercept anything you have to calculate how many missiles there are and how many shots you have available. There should not be much need to do this calculations... but there could be an option to do so if someone want to do that.

The way I read the rules, I think this is what you get if you set all the FCs to max shots per missile and all vessels to the same defense priority, and prioritize the FCs in descending order of hit chance.

Yes, that's correct.

Although if the missile list is kept in order after each round of assignment, the current assignment will 'prioritize' missiles in front of the missile list when the number of shots is not divisible by the number of missiles.

For example, 5 incoming missiles vs 6 shots of 80% hit chance, 6 shots of 50 hit chance, and 12 shots of 20% hit chance:

• Missile 1: 80%, 80%, 50%, 20%, 20%, overall leak chance 1.28%
• Missile 2: 80%, 50%, 50%, 20%, 20%, overall leak chance 3.2%
• Missile 3: 80%, 50%, 20%, 20%, 20%, overall leak chance 5.12%
• Missile 4: 80%, 50%, 20%, 20%, 20%, overall leak chance 5.12%
• Missile 5: 80%, 50%, 20%, 20%, overall leak chance 6.4%

[Rince Wind]

Mainly because I haven't found a way to implement them that I really like. I considered similar to lasers with spinal just allowing a larger mount, or maybe more shots, but I would prefer to have something with more variety, but that doesn't overpower railguns.

Maybe increase launch velocity instead of caliber for spinal railguns?
Though I guess the result on the enemies side is about the same, but it would give them some nice fluff.

[Arwyn]

Spinal railguns would be a nice addition, I kind of miss the old 'crowbars' from Leviathan.

[Marski]

Spinal railguns would be a nice addition, I kind of miss the old 'crowbars' from Leviathan.

Have you even installed the game and launched it even once before writing into this forum?

[jatzi]

While Steve is changing up some NPRs and he mentioned precursors and invaders a bit could I suggest minefields for precursors? I suggested it once before, it's thematically accurate with them being very defensive.  They could spawn with mines already laid or have mine layers.  Someone on the discord said as I'm typing this that it'd be fun as long as they're not on the JP.  But I don't see an issue with them being laid on the JP itself.  It'd be easy to clear a JP of mines as long as you scout it out.  And survey ships in a precursor system are already probably dead anyways.  It would make dealing with precursors harder and a bit more interesting while also being accurate to the lore of precursors and really highlighting their defense nature

[Bremen]

Heya Steve,

Really enjoying v2. 1. 1 version of Aurora and v2. 2 looks great with all the changes you've been making.

I saw that Plasma Carronades are getting Spinal Mounts. 
Is there a reason why Railguns don't have them? I'm really craving my MACs, lol.

Many thanks

Mainly because I haven't found a way to implement them that I really like. I considered similar to lasers with spinal just allowing a larger mount, or maybe more shots, but I would prefer to have something with more variety, but that doesn't overpower railguns.

My preferred spinal railgun would be something that loses accuracy instead of damage with distance, ie it always hits for full damage but at a range where it would normally inflict half damage it instead has half the chance to hit. But on thinking about it that might require overhauling the weapons code since I don't think any weapons have accuracy modifiers, IIRC that's all handled by fire controls.

Another thematic option I can think of would be getting a damage bonus from ship speed.

[Destragon]

I think it would be weird if spinal railguns had radically different mechanics from normal sized ones. Being able to shoot more than 4 times per volley or something similar would be good enough imo.

[Garfunkel]

While Steve is changing up some NPRs and he mentioned precursors and invaders a bit could I suggest minefields for precursors? I suggested it once before, it's thematically accurate with them being very defensive.  They could spawn with mines already laid or have mine layers.  Someone on the discord said as I'm typing this that it'd be fun as long as they're not on the JP.  But I don't see an issue with them being laid on the JP itself.  It'd be easy to clear a JP of mines as long as you scout it out.  And survey ships in a precursor system are already probably dead anyways.  It would make dealing with precursors harder and a bit more interesting while also being accurate to the lore of precursors and really highlighting their defense nature

We used to have Precursor minefields and they were not fun at all. It's one of those things that sounds interesting as an idea but in-game it sucks. Encountering the minefields was boring and frustrating. Plus, there were bunch of bugs involved with them as well.

[Iceranger]

It is exciting to see NPR ship design got an improvement!

@Steve, since the NPR ship templates are removed, do they now make reasonable decisions on ship parameters? For example, fighters and FACs need to be small and fast, beam ships are generally faster than missile ships, and carriers must carry additional fuel and MSP for their parasites (and missile magazines if they have bombers onboard). Will they be able to make fleets with balanced offensive and defensive capabilities?

[Nori]

Dang, the NPR ship change sounds amazing. How did the changes get programmed so fast? 

[Bremen]

While Steve is changing up some NPRs and he mentioned precursors and invaders a bit could I suggest minefields for precursors? I suggested it once before, it's thematically accurate with them being very defensive.  They could spawn with mines already laid or have mine layers.  Someone on the discord said as I'm typing this that it'd be fun as long as they're not on the JP.  But I don't see an issue with them being laid on the JP itself.  It'd be easy to clear a JP of mines as long as you scout it out.  And survey ships in a precursor system are already probably dead anyways.  It would make dealing with precursors harder and a bit more interesting while also being accurate to the lore of precursors and really highlighting their defense nature

We used to have Precursor minefields and they were not fun at all. It's one of those things that sounds interesting as an idea but in-game it sucks. Encountering the minefields was boring and frustrating. Plus, there were bunch of bugs involved with them as well.

Also, the empty mines stuck around and they'd give you combat interrupts every time one of your ships came into or out of their range unless you found them with an anti-missile sensor and cleaned them out.

[Droll]

Dang, the NPR ship change sounds amazing. How did the changes get programmed so fast? 

Necessity I imagine, I hope this maybe makes it easier to incorporate parasites and their carriers into NPR design too. Seeing energy shields being more common is also very nice though.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Will we soon se NPR carriers as well, that would be awesome?

[Mayne]

Wow, the NPR design changes look great! I agree with the other poster that said this is sounding more and more like 3. 0.

On the topic of spinal railguns, maybe they could trade number of shots for a better range modifier? Maybe it could be +1 RM and -1 shots for the base tech, and then +2RM and -2 shots for advanced spinal railguns.  No idea if that would be balanced but it would be somewhat unique.  You could use this mod on a "3-shot" high caliber railgun to get a single shot spinal weapon that would be kind of like a Halo MAC.