C# Aurora Changes Discussion

[Iranon]

The problem is that much (most?) of the time, this is something we shouldn't have to deal with.
If some of our high-performance ships chase down some hostiles and rejoin the main fleet, I'd expect someone to figure out that the empty ships need fuel more urgently than the full ones.
I'd expect an option along the lines of "prioritise whoever in the fleet/subfleet would run dry first at current consumption" with no further micromanagement involved.

Otherwise, it qualifies as deliberate user-unfriendliness... or more accurately, outright hostility.

[bean]

Assume that the tanker can move fuel at the same rate as fuel is used and the tanker only has 2 "boom arms" to refuel ships with, and there there are 4 ships other than the tanker that needs fuel. Logic dictates that it can keep the 2 ships topped off while the other two are using fuel. When fuel starts to get low on the other two, logic dictates for the fleet to stop and fuel up the other two to full then continuing on. This whole discussion seems to be under the assumption that the ships are being chased and if they slow don they will blow up.

That's not generally how I'd want them to do things.  Let's say I'm transferring ships A-D between locations that are 1.5x their range apart.  If the tanker just fuels A and B, then you have to stop part of the way through and refuel C and D before continuing.  If the tanker fuels all four equally, then you'll finish without having to stop, with 25% fuel in all four ships.  Obviously, if you're going between places 2.5x apart, the time taken will be the same in both cases, either two stops to refuel 2 ships, or one stop to refuel all 4.  I'm not sure of the balance between the two cases, but overall, I think I'd rather have the balanced refueling.
This is particularly true when you start thinking about tactical implications.  If the tanker only fuels A and B, then there's a serious imbalance in the potential range of my ships if things start happening.  Maybe I have to split my fleet and send A and B off on their own while I refuel C and D.  I'd much prefer that in general, all ships are kept as close as possible to the same endurance.

[MarcAFK]

It seems like people want an option that tells a tanker to attempt equalized refuelling for the fleet it's in.

[alex_brunius]

Steve's changes list seems to make things pretty clear-

"Each tanker class has a minimum fuel setting (in the class window) and will not refuel ships once it falls below that level. Each class & ship has a 'refuel priority', with higher numbers equalling higher priority. The tanker will refuel in descending order of ship priority, then by descending order of class priority. The tanker will automatically move to a second ship (or more) if there is sufficient time and fuel remaining in the sub-pulse."

Isn't this just the same mechanism as for commander assignment? ie, you can set everything as the same priority (with the lowest fueled ship refueled first) or you can get fancy and try to keep your battlecruisers topped up to full even if it means your carrieres run out of fuel and have to stop. Your choice.

Where in that statement do you think it's "pretty clear" that the "lowest fueled ships get refueled first" if they have same priority??

My take on it is that it could be implemented either way, which is why I'm trying to get a clarification. 

[Steve Walmsley]

Where in that statement do you think it's "pretty clear" that the "lowest fueled ships get refueled first" if they have same priority??

My take on it is that it could be implemented either way, which is why I'm trying to get a clarification. 

Yes, I should have made that clear. Order of fuelling is Ship Priority, then Class Priority, then lowest fuel percentage. So if all assigned priorities are equal, the ship with the least fuel will be refuelled first.

As this check is made once per sub-pulse, the tanker will keep everyone topped up equally unless the player assigns higher priorities.

[sloanjh (OP)]

1)  A, B have full tanks and C and D are empty.
2)  A-D all have (roughly) half-empty tanks.

Obviously #1 is the preferred (and realistic) behavior.  Reading the new rules post, it seems like we'll end up with #2.  Is there a way to avoid this?

By what I see, 2 is the preferred and the expected as I thought the refueling priorities would put the lowest fuel % first. So it would alternate fueling en-route between A and B for a week total, and C and D the another week total.

AAAARGH!!!  Yes, TWO is the preferred and expected option.  Sorry about the goof on my part - I think it can be termed catastrophic!

Alex and 83athom have it exactly correct in terms of what I was trying to point out.  As someone else said I think we need an "equalize fleet" option as well to prevent this.  Oh, and btw, let's say A, B, C, and D are all different classes, so setting a single class to the highest priority won't work based on my reading of the behavior.

As for whether this makes sense (in terms of only having two "booms"), the USN doesn't have 1/2 the ships in a TG empty and the other half full when they're relying on unrep.  They simply rotate the ships that are being refueled.  My point is that the player shouldn't have to micromanage this.

STEVE - Could I request another answer based on the correct wording that #2 is the desired behavior?

Thanks,
John

[sloanjh (OP)]

STEVE - Could I request another answer based on the correct wording that #2 is the desired behavior?

Ok - just saw the Ninja post.

So it sounds like if you leave the priorities unset it gives highest priority to lowest percentage, which is perfect.  Should we have a "min %" threshold for the fleet (e.g. 20%) that pops a ship up to the top of the priority list if it falls below when priorities ARE set? (If more than one are below presumably the lowest would go first).

John

[alex_brunius]

Yes, I should have made that clear. Order of fuelling is Ship Priority, then Class Priority, then lowest fuel percentage. So if all assigned priorities are equal, the ship with the least fuel will be refuelled first.

As this check is made once per sub-pulse, the tanker will keep everyone topped up equally unless the player assigns higher priorities.

Great! Thanks for the clarification.

Then I'll be able to just happily ignore ever setting any refueling priorities at all and tankers should default to my desired behavior of refueling the ship with lowest percentage always 

[83athom]

Great! Thanks for the clarification.

Then I'll be able to just happily ignore ever setting any refueling priorities at all and tankers should default to my desired behavior of refueling the ship with lowest percentage always 

Well, if you have extremely fast smaller ships (corvettes or something like that) that you want to keep at 100% since you want them to break off from the fleet for some reason, then you would want to play with priorities. Also escorts; you would want to keep your shorter ranged military craft refueled to a higher % than a freighter that can get a hundred billion km at half tank.

[TCD]

Well, if you have extremely fast smaller ships (corvettes or something like that) that you want to keep at 100% since you want them to break off from the fleet for some reason, then you would want to play with priorities. Also escorts; you would want to keep your shorter ranged military craft refueled to a higher % than a freighter that can get a hundred billion km at half tank.

Yes, as often with Aurora it sounds like a great compromise between general ease of use and complexity/depth when needed. Another possible use of priorities is for those sad occasions when things have gone bad. I may want to make sure my brand new carrier is more fully fueled than my ageing escort destroyers, just in case a stray missile/FAC takes out the tanker.

[bean]

Well, if you have extremely fast smaller ships (corvettes or something like that) that you want to keep at 100% since you want them to break off from the fleet for some reason, then you would want to play with priorities. Also escorts; you would want to keep your shorter ranged military craft refueled to a higher % than a freighter that can get a hundred billion km at half tank.

Yes, and I think the priority system will support that pretty well.  The small, short-legged ships that basically are using the tanker as their drop tank have priority 1, the regular warships get priority 0, and the freighters get priority -1.  If you really want to save your fuel for the warships, put the escorts in a separate subfleet from the freighters.

[alex_brunius]

Well, if you have extremely fast smaller ships (corvettes or something like that) that you want to keep at 100% since you want them to break off from the fleet for some reason, then you would want to play with priorities. Also escorts; you would want to keep your shorter ranged military craft refueled to a higher % than a freighter that can get a hundred billion km at half tank.

Yeah, but that's doctrine dependent. My doctrine puts all smaller fast ships in hangars ( fighters most of the time ), and the rest of the fleet get a standard speed and engine efficiency shared from smallest to largest ships.

Good point about the freighters though, might make sense to have them at a lower prio if you should for any odd reason ever put them in the same TG as military ships.

[JOKER]

I'm thinking about intra-system jump. My idea is mainly from Freespace2 and its mod Blue planet, but also from "emergency FTL" in Stellaris.

Blue planet walkthrough: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC89WYnIXtfVb-8Avd7LAgX21tTRMKmz2

A case of tactical jump: 12:50, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge0mcoREdi8&list=PLC89WYnIXtfVb-8Avd7LAgX21tTRMKmz2&index=7

Currently, battle scale is a bit too "large" as sufficiently advanced warship can hit other side of system with missile, and missile is tactically dominating battle (though it may have logistic problem). And at a certain tech level, sensor and missile range made it really hard to retreat and break contact from a losing battle, especially for NPR. Will intra-system jump be a solution?

However, TN engine mechanic may not handle this well. I'm not sure how to justify it.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I'm thinking about intra-system jump. My idea is mainly from Freespace2 and its mod Blue planet, but also from "emergency FTL" in Stellaris.

Blue planet walkthrough: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC89WYnIXtfVb-8Avd7LAgX21tTRMKmz2

A case of tactical jump: 12:50, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge0mcoREdi8&list=PLC89WYnIXtfVb-8Avd7LAgX21tTRMKmz2&index=7

Currently, battle scale is a bit too "large" as sufficiently advanced warship can hit other side of system with missile, and missile is tactically dominating battle (though it may have logistic problem). And at a certain tech level, sensor and missile range made it really hard to retreat and break contact from a losing battle, especially for NPR. Will intra-system jump be a solution?

However, TN engine mechanic may not handle this well. I'm not sure how to justify it.

If sensors didn't scale in a linear fashion some of these problems would go away, that would probably be an easier fix. So... let resolution increase sensor strength linear but the sensor strength in itself increase range in the same way resolution between sensors scale non linear. Just my two cents worth of suggestions.

[83athom]

I'm thinking about intra-system jump. My idea is mainly from Freespace2 and its mod Blue planet, but also from "emergency FTL" in Stellaris.

THere used to be a hyperdrive, but it was removed due to reasons.

Currently, battle scale is a bit too "large" as sufficiently advanced warship can hit other side of system with missile, and missile is tactically dominating battle (though it may have logistic problem). And at a certain tech level, sensor and missile range made it really hard to retreat and break contact from a losing battle, especially for NPR. Will intra-system jump be a solution?

The same could be said about modern naval warfare (and its history).  We used to only be able to ram other ships and board, then we shot large "arrows", then cannons, then we upgraded the cannons to fire at longer ranges, then we increased there ranges tremendously again while also vastly improving their damage, then later on we got missiles (which could destroy a target from well beyond visible range), and lastly we now have the railgun which can fire a large shell without charges an extreme distance (and it is self guided). The whole point of advancing technologically is to outclass any previous technologies.