Author Topic: C# Aurora Changes Discussion  (Read 441978 times)

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Offline Garfunkel

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1920 on: November 09, 2018, 06:23:52 PM »
Cool beans.

Turns out Vangelis made an album:
list=PLMftvPCnRjqnk-CVVlZZrAD6j9P6VK3ue
More Aurora background music :D
 

Offline MarcAFK

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1921 on: November 11, 2018, 06:35:14 AM »
Harpoon? Should have tried a shaped charge like Hayabusa.
" Why is this godforsaken hellhole worth dying for? "
". . .  We know nothing about them, their language, their history or what they look like.  But we can assume this.  They stand for everything we don't stand for.  Also they told me you guys look like dorks. "
"Stop exploding, you cowards.  "
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1922 on: November 13, 2018, 05:14:58 PM »

I understand the concerns about agility and I will do something to address it. I rarely reach AM levels in my games so it hasn't been on my radar as much as it should have. I think I may need a different mechanic to replace agility but haven't decided how to handle it. I will also look at EW for missiles.

Plus, once I start running a campaign I will see how the theory works in practice. If there are problem, I will change it.

Sorry to bring up an old comment but I was looking through the thread and I had some feedback in this issue. As pointed out agility has an almost exponential effect on AMM efficiency since Agility don't do anything for missile defense and speed is what mostly define missile defense aside from ECM now as well in a different way.

But... when we look at missiles in real life there is a similar war going on between agile or speed as defense for missiles. I don't think any of them has won that fight yet as both have merits.

My suggestion would be to make agility on offensive missiles act as defense against enemy missiles but serve no purpose against beam attacks. The reasoning being that the agility is not quick enough to avoid a laser or Gauss shot at close range.

So... speed and Agility would be two separate defensive mechanisms and don't directly add to a missiles chance to intercept or hit something.

Now you could add agility to everything and use the same rules for missiles and ships. The heavier an object is the more space is needed for each point of agility thus a small missile need very little internal speed for agility and a large 10.000t ship need allot more space for internal integrity to conduct evasive maneuvers against missiles but you could potentially add some Agility to ships to reduce the chance to hit them... especially useful on slower ships.

This would also fix the current problem and add some more interesting things to equip things like fighters and ships with. It will also not make agility overpowered at intercepting missiles as you gain technology as you also use it to avoid missiles.

For offensive missiles agility will be useful to avoid enemy missiles but will do nothing against Beam PD, so you can't go nuts on it which will still make AMM slightly more efficient in the use of Agility.

You can also make small Interceptor fighters really good at dodging incoming missiles which can be interesting in a anti-fighter or space superiority role.

You could just make it something simple such as 5p Agility in the AMM versus 3p Agility on the ASM means 3/5 = 60% chance of avoiding a hit if the missile hit due to speed. Of course the balance would then be how easy it is to hit through speed or how to balance it.
 
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Offline Polestar

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1923 on: November 17, 2018, 02:29:30 PM »
The great win we're all looking forward to in Aurora is the C# speed-up. This gain makes certain other wins possible, and I'd like to suggest one of them: Removing the 5-second minimum combat time step, or "pulse".

A lot happens in five seconds. Weapons charge up, wait, and only fire at the end of the interval. Beam weapon design is made considerably less flexible, with key tech advances being those that allow weapons to finish charging every 5*n seconds. Fast missiles teleport from medium range to hull contact in one jump, which again limits the design of non-CIWS missile defences.

I propose that the game move to a one-second (or smaller) sub-interval - a "pulse" - for combat, and that pulse occur sequentially, system-by-system (this could obviously be multithreaded) in which there is active combat, during each interval. These intervals could (if desired) remain as they are, with a 5 second interval continuing to be the minimum.
« Last Edit: November 17, 2018, 02:31:29 PM by Polestar »
 

Offline Whitecold

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1924 on: November 18, 2018, 12:32:57 AM »
The great win we're all looking forward to in Aurora is the C# speed-up. This gain makes certain other wins possible, and I'd like to suggest one of them: Removing the 5-second minimum combat time step, or "pulse".

A lot happens in five seconds. Weapons charge up, wait, and only fire at the end of the interval. Beam weapon design is made considerably less flexible, with key tech advances being those that allow weapons to finish charging every 5*n seconds. Fast missiles teleport from medium range to hull contact in one jump, which again limits the design of non-CIWS missile defences.

I propose that the game move to a one-second (or smaller) sub-interval - a "pulse" - for combat, and that pulse occur sequentially, system-by-system (this could obviously be multithreaded) in which there is active combat, during each interval. These intervals could (if desired) remain as they are, with a 5 second interval continuing to be the minimum.
Could much of that not be achieved by allowing weapons to fire possible multiple times per pulse? If you have a reload of 4 seconds, you fire twice 2 first pulse, once second... all you have to track is a single number how much you are reloaded.
I agree it is a shame that you end up running against this limit. It seriously affects your choice of PD, since many missiles cross the engagement range in 1 to 2 pulses, you end up going for Gauss in final defense.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2018, 12:35:45 AM by Whitecold »
 

Offline QuakeIV

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1925 on: November 18, 2018, 04:43:04 PM »
It's been discussed in the past.  Laser maximum range is the distance light travels in a single pulse, and the solutions to that were all dismissed as too complicated or not good enough.  It's still kind of beyond me why we can't just say TN lasers work like TN sensors and are instantaneous, which is why they cost TN resources to build, but such is life.
 

Offline Garfunkel

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1926 on: November 18, 2018, 06:49:11 PM »
Yes, if the shortest pulse is brought down to 1 second, then Steve has to code in tracking of beams moving second by second. If such a system is devised, then the max range of beam weapons becomes unlimited as well and the whole space combat metagame will drastically change. It would be a huge change, and probably not something that should even be attempted at the initial C# launch.
 

Offline tobijon

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1927 on: November 19, 2018, 03:55:47 AM »
yeah but allowing beam weapons to fire more than once in a 5 second increment shouldn't be too hard, and will essentially be the same thing
 
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Offline TMaekler

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1928 on: November 19, 2018, 06:47:33 AM »
yeah but allowing beam weapons to fire more than once in a 5 second increment shouldn't be too hard, and will essentially be the same thing
You should try and program that and see, how many problems occour, when you change "one simple system" ;-)
 

Offline chrislocke2000

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1929 on: November 19, 2018, 07:20:07 AM »
There are a few areas of game play where the five second tick causes frustrations, off the top of my head the ones I can think of are:

- Missiles launching and impacting before AMMs can detect and launch
- Missiles moving through the PD engagement envelope of picket ships / fighters without giving those ships the chance to fire
- Fighter dog fights generally just coming down to he who has the highest initiative decides on if they want the engagement (similar for ships but generally don't have the glaring differences in distance v weapon range as you do for fighters).

None of these cause huge issues but it would be nice to have a tweak in game mechanics to help address some of this. I also think the missile issues will be less of a problem in C# as I believe that missiles will generally be a bit slower than current V7.1.
 

Offline Agoelia

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1930 on: November 19, 2018, 07:23:40 AM »
Quote from: Garfunkel link=topic=8497. msg111075#msg111075 date=1542588551
Yes, if the shortest pulse is brought down to 1 second, then Steve has to code in tracking of beams moving second by second.  If such a system is devised, then the max range of beam weapons becomes unlimited as well and the whole space combat metagame will drastically change.  It would be a huge change, and probably not something that should even be attempted at the initial C# launch.


I fail to see how it would increase the max range of beam weapons, let alone making it infinite.
You say Steve would have to code tracking second by second, but wouldn't it be the same code that allows to track 5 seconds by 5 seconds?.  I don't really understand how 1 sec is that different from 5 secs.  It's just an amount of time, only smaller, and therefore allows for more granularity in movement, reload rates, combat, etc, etc.  Yes, it would change the metagame, and that's precisely the point. 
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1931 on: November 19, 2018, 07:25:34 AM »
- Missiles launching and impacting before AMMs can detect and launch

This is no longer an issue in C# Aurora. Missiles are detected at launch (outside the normal detection sequence).
 

Offline TMaekler

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1932 on: November 19, 2018, 08:45:27 AM »
I fail to see how it would increase the max range of beam weapons, let alone making it infinite.
You say Steve would have to code tracking second by second, but wouldn't it be the same code that allows to track 5 seconds by 5 seconds?.  I don't really understand how 1 sec is that different from 5 secs.  It's just an amount of time, only smaller, and therefore allows for more granularity in movement, reload rates, combat, etc, etc.  Yes, it would change the metagame, and that's precisely the point.
If Steve would keep the actual game mechanics and switch to 1 sec impulses, that would limit beam weapons to a max range of 300.000km (How far light could travel within 1 second). Through the 5 second impulse beam weapons can go up to a max range of 1.500.000km (5 seconds of lightspeed).

In order to change that, Steve would have to create beam-objects that the game can track through time. Basically missiles which can only go one speed (lightspeed), don't have a "follow-target-mechanism", have different patterns of damage and cannot be engaged by AMMs. It would also mean a rewrite of hit chances of the beam weapons. If you for example shoot at a target that is 25 light seconds away - a simple evasion of one ship length would lead to missing the target - and 25 seconds to react to such a shot is reasonable within a sci-fy setting. But how would you calculate that ingame?
 
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Online Kelewan

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1933 on: November 19, 2018, 08:47:39 AM »
Quote from: Garfunkel link=topic=8497. msg111075#msg111075 date=1542588551
Yes, if the shortest pulse is brought down to 1 second, then Steve has to code in tracking of beams moving second by second.  If such a system is devised, then the max range of beam weapons becomes unlimited as well and the whole space combat metagame will drastically change.  It would be a huge change, and probably not something that should even be attempted at the initial C# launch.

I fail to see how it would increase the max range of beam weapons, let alone making it infinite.
You say Steve would have to code tracking second by second, but wouldn't it be the same code that allows to track 5 seconds by 5 seconds?.  I don't really understand how 1 sec is that different from 5 secs.  It's just an amount of time, only smaller, and therefore allows for more granularity in movement, reload rates, combat, etc, etc.  Yes, it would change the metagame, and that's precisely the point.

The 5 Second Intervalls and Beam weapon range is a complicate problem, and there are some aspects that get mixed up and put together that make the discussion like a gordian knot.

  • Range of Beam-Weapons (all non-Missile): This is mostly a balance issue and to make a meaningful choice between Beam-Weapons and Missiles .
    You can't stop Beam-Weapons and Beam-Weapons have a lower logistic overhead.
    If Beam-Weapons have a range comparable to missiles there would be no use for missiles.
    There is a convenient limit (Min time increment) x (Speed of Light) to give a reason for the range limitation.
    FTL Beam-Weapons would remove this convinient limit without giving a new limit
  • Not Tracking  of Beam-Weapons: If the time increment is reduced without changing the range limitation, or it the range is increased, 
    there will be situations where the beam-weapon will hit in an other time increment as the weapon was fired. So Aurora needs to keep a list of Beams in the flight.
    This is a knew overhead that needs programming, and it will lead to new questions like "what if a targeted ship changes it's movement".
    I can't comment on the Calculation overhead and how much it will impact the overall game speed in combat (see last point)
  • Missiles skipping PD-Ranges:
      - Missiles launching and impacting before AMMs can detect and launch

    This is no longer an issue in C# Aurora. Missiles are detected at launch (outside the normal detection sequence).
  • 5 Seconds Intervals spoilers and slowdown: If the game progresses in smaller intervals as selected by the player,
    it indicates that other actions are happening. This can spoil the information that missiles are launched.
    Also if NPR-Races are engaged in combat it can slow down aurora.
    I hope that the slowdown will have much lower impact on the game with Aurora C#
    And that the spoiler can be addressed by continuing  the interval without interupt till the original interval
    is completed or the player can detect the missiles.
    This is a complicate problem, and there are some aspects that get mixed up and put together that make the discussion like a gordian knot.

Update: TMaekler was faster answering while i was still writing. But I think it is important to keep the other aspects in mind
« Last Edit: November 19, 2018, 08:53:35 AM by Kelewan »
 
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Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1934 on: November 19, 2018, 11:28:21 AM »
    Range of Beam-Weapons (all non-Missile): This is mostly a balance issue and to make a meaningful choice between Beam-Weapons and Missiles .
    You can't stop Beam-Weapons and Beam-Weapons have a lower logistic overhead.
    If Beam-Weapons have a range comparable to missiles there would be no use for missiles.
    There is a convenient limit (Min time increment) x (Speed of Light) to give a reason for the range limitation.
    FTL Beam-Weapons would remove this convinient limit without giving a new limit
    [/li]
    [/list]

    Yes, this is exactly why the limit applies. If beam weapon range increases, they become too powerful and the 5-second limit is convenient technobabble. Currently, longer-range beams can be closed down by faster ships within a reasonable time. If the range noticeably increases, longer-range beams win regardless of speed.

    Faster ships with longer-ranged beams win in either case.