Author Topic: Semi-Official 7.x Suggestion Thread  (Read 169067 times)

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Offline obsidian_green

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Re: Semi-Official 7.x Suggestion Thread
« Reply #735 on: September 30, 2017, 06:46:51 PM »
Historically, I thought carronade was just a type of cannon. As far as the game is concerned, I still don't quite know what to make of it, given there's no reason for the magnetically-contained plasma bullets/shells (plasmoids) to be that limited in range.

Scratch that: if the plasmoid is that high energy, it probably wouldn't last that long. I might need to get a scientist working on that now that I have a rationale for it.
 

Offline TheBawkHawk

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Re: Semi-Official 7.x Suggestion Thread
« Reply #736 on: September 30, 2017, 10:02:37 PM »
Have to do the same with Gauss cannons, if we're applying that logic. We also have to explain how the projectiles eventually disappear. Hmmm ... maybe the TN materials evaporate? That might help explain why I have to maintain a parked ship in orbit with tons of materials when it's simply floating in a vacuum.  ;)

Now if those were plasma cannons (not talking whatever the "carronade" is supposed to be), the plasma "bullets" might dissipate after the magnetic pocket that contains it wears out and that could explain decreased damage at range. Also explains why they have apparently unlimited ammo---figure gas-compression tech and good batteries could give that appearance despite that being as finite as solid projectiles.

I always thought it was due to TN elements being partially in an alternate dimension with fluidic space, so they have drag. That's why our ships can do all these insane maneuvers at significant fractions of the speed of light - they exist partially in another dimension where Newton's laws aren't obeyed, and space itself resists movement. If the railgun/gauss cannon rounds are TN (which they almost certainly are to have a chance at even scratching a TN warship's armour), then they would be subject to that same force of drag.
 

Offline QuakeIV

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Re: Semi-Official 7.x Suggestion Thread
« Reply #737 on: September 30, 2017, 10:08:01 PM »
I think we can assume the railgun projectiles aren't suffering from TN drag since that drag will cause huge warships to instantly come to a halt, and yet the railgun projectiles can engage at range.

I agree that rail/gauss guns should have full damage throughout their range, and their effectiveness at range should purely relate to their ability to hit their targets.  Honestly the real reason I like this idea is that it would, in my opinion, provide another interesting distinction for railguns as compared to the other weapons systems.

 

Offline Barkhorn

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Re: Semi-Official 7.x Suggestion Thread
« Reply #738 on: September 30, 2017, 10:12:36 PM »
Gauss cannons DO do full damage at max range.  It's only railguns that have that damage drop-off for no reason.
 
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Offline Silvarelion

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Re: Semi-Official 7.x Suggestion Thread
« Reply #739 on: October 01, 2017, 06:48:46 AM »
I always thought of it as effective damage and effective range, whereby the energy of the projectile doesn't change, but the damage does due to maneuvers or countermeasures taken by the target ship. Other games use dice rolls to simulate glancing hits and ineffective shots, but I like the predictability of the damage falloff.
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Offline sloanjh

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Re: Semi-Official 7.x Suggestion Thread
« Reply #740 on: October 01, 2017, 09:09:04 AM »
A 'carronade' is a term from the age of sail. Due to a variety of factors warships were generally standardised on the concept of 8, 16, 24 and 32 pounder gun batteries. Frigates were the lightest of these ships, small, agile and generally equipped with a single deck of guns no heavier than 16 pounds. If they had another deck, it was probably 8 pounders.

This made these frigates fast ships and excellent for scouting, but not really suited to a battle line.

Ships of the line however carried batteries of big guns, often on 3 decks that were loaded from top to bottom with 16, 24 and 32 pounder guns. This made them very powerful in naval artillery, but slow and lumbering at best.

So what happens when you take a ship of the line and tear off the top gun deck?

Well, you get a heavy, slower frigate than normal that's absurdly overgunned for its size with its batteries of 24 and 32 pounders, but with crap for range. These ships were called carronade frigates.


And that's kind of the role the Plasma Carronade has in game; a big weapon system that's rather close in and horrifyingly good at breaking other ships.

Ummmm based on my recollection from playing Wooden Ships & Iron Men oh so many years ago (and reading Horatio Hornblower) I think this explanation is a little bit off.  It looks good right up until "These ships were called carronade frigates" part at the very end.

The short version:  What you've described is a "razee frigate". Carronade is a niche type of gun, distinct from a "long gun", which has a shorter barrel and is of heavier caliber for the same weight.

The long version:

My recollection (and here are a couple of links to back it up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carronade https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/6025-cannons-vs-carronades/ http://artillerymanmagazine.com/Archives/2004/carronades_sp04.html) was that carronades were much shorter guns that could fire much heavier shot for the same weight of barrel and hence were more inaccurate, i.e. like designing a sawed-off shotgun in a larger caliber to take advantage of the weight savings.

The 3rd link (to artillerymanmagazine) above was the most interesting (in the "I learned something" sense) to me - it's got a good discussion of how the accuracy issue is more nuanced than simply "short barrel = greater angular dispersion".

So Carronades are actually a different type of gun than "long guns".  BTW, cutting off the top deck of a ship was called "razeeing" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razee) - I think you may have been thinking of "Razee Frigates" (as opposed to "carronade frigates) in your description.

John
 
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Offline Hazard

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Re: Semi-Official 7.x Suggestion Thread
« Reply #741 on: October 01, 2017, 11:20:27 AM »
You are right, I forgot a step (switching from long guns to short guns), but razee frigates were generally the ships equipped with carronades. Mostly because normal frigates were a little fragile for the throw weight a carronade battery could offer, so they needed to be more sturdily built in comparison. Razees were perfect for that because all the other bits were already in place and all that was needed was removing the superfluous top gun deck.

It also meant you had a use for captured ships of the battle you couldn't maintain on that level. Well, for more than spare parts anyway.
 

Offline alex_brunius

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Re: Semi-Official 7.x Suggestion Thread
« Reply #742 on: October 02, 2017, 01:52:04 AM »
I think we can assume the railgun projectiles aren't suffering from TN drag since that drag will cause huge warships to instantly come to a halt, and yet the railgun projectiles can engage at range.

No, warships don't instantly come to a halt, it takes 5 seconds.

Since no projectiles travel for as long as 5 seconds even we have no way of telling if they suffer from drag or not, but I think we can assume they do suffer from drag since for example railgun damage is reduced at range.

Gauss seems to be too short range / inaccurate for it to have time to matter.



If projectiles didn't suffer drag why can't I fire them from 400 million km away at a stationary target?
« Last Edit: October 02, 2017, 01:54:13 AM by alex_brunius »
 

Offline boggo2300

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Re: Semi-Official 7.x Suggestion Thread
« Reply #743 on: October 02, 2017, 03:54:04 PM »
You are right, I forgot a step (switching from long guns to short guns), but razee frigates were generally the ships equipped with carronades. Mostly because normal frigates were a little fragile for the throw weight a carronade battery could offer, so they needed to be more sturdily built in comparison. Razees were perfect for that because all the other bits were already in place and all that was needed was removing the superfluous top gun deck.

It also meant you had a use for captured ships of the battle you couldn't maintain on that level. Well, for more than spare parts anyway.

No carronades were actually very widely used, most ships of the line carried a deck of them as well as long guns, and most frigates used them as their primary guns with Long guns in a secondary role for some range,  carronades giving you more bang for the weight so to speak.

H.M.S. Indefatigable (sticking with Hornblower) though a Razee (though so many British Frigates were Razees rather than Frigate built it could be considered the norm) had;
twenty-six 24-pounder guns on her gundeck, and mounted eight 12-pounder guns on her quarterdeck and a further four on her forecastle, as well as four 42-pounder carronades on her quarterdeck and two on her forecastle.

Incidentally because of this,  Indefatigable was much more dangerous at close range AFTER she was Razee'd than before as a 64 gun third rate!
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Offline Detros

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Re: Semi-Official 7.x Suggestion Thread
« Reply #744 on: October 09, 2017, 05:49:05 AM »
Event log:
add an event for "Industry reactivated" (end of that 180 days long period) which will say which industry and where was reactivated.
 

Offline QuakeIV

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Re: Semi-Official 7.x Suggestion Thread
« Reply #745 on: October 09, 2017, 06:43:54 AM »
No, warships don't instantly come to a halt, it takes 5 seconds.

Since no projectiles travel for as long as 5 seconds even we have no way of telling if they suffer from drag or not, but I think we can assume they do suffer from drag since for example railgun damage is reduced at range.

Gauss seems to be too short range / inaccurate for it to have time to matter.



If projectiles didn't suffer drag why can't I fire them from 400 million km away at a stationary target?

Accuracy I guess?
 

Offline 83athom

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Re: Semi-Official 7.x Suggestion Thread
« Reply #746 on: October 09, 2017, 08:19:32 AM »
Directed Active Sensor.

Much like the current active sensor, yet longer ranged for a given technology. The downside being that it is only detects contacts in a cone in front of the mounting in the direction of travel. Could have multiple techs to research, IE; +50% range +/- 45 degree cone, +100% range +/- 30 degree cone, etc. My original thought about this was for use on missiles, so it could be a missile only component, but then I thought that it would also have its use on fighters and certain warship designs.
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Offline Xonok

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Re: Semi-Official 7.x Suggestion Thread
« Reply #747 on: October 09, 2017, 06:47:01 PM »
What I'd like is some way to change resource abundance in system generation.    Something like a box called "Resource abundance" with a default value of 100 (%).    By changing that at system generation I would scale all minerals in the entire universe up or down.   
So for instance if I put it at 1000%, my homeworld minerals and all the minerals I will discover since will be 10x as large.   
It doesn't have to work retroactively. 
« Last Edit: October 09, 2017, 07:51:54 PM by Xonok »
 
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Offline Detros

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Re: Semi-Official 7.x Suggestion Thread
« Reply #748 on: October 10, 2017, 02:19:31 AM »
Class design -> DAC/Rank/Info:
There could be an option to continue the enumeration and not start again from 1 with the enumeration of generated names of given class. DAC/Rank/Info tab of Class design screen would offer "Enumeration style" listbox where one can either select "start again from 1" or select one of other classes to continue the enumeration of that other class. Great for updated version of class design after some research breakthrough.

Production -> Manage shipyards:
When ordering a construction/refit of ship there would be a checkbox "Don't use any stockpiled components" or even a list of stockpiled components this construction/refit will consume in which one can select which items should be really used. Useful when there are multiple classes that need the same parts. Player currently can't make sure  classes won't "steal" components intended for some other class in construction/refit other than with tiresome fiddling of industry tasks.
 

Offline alex_brunius

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Re: Semi-Official 7.x Suggestion Thread
« Reply #749 on: October 10, 2017, 02:32:00 AM »
Accuracy I guess?

That doesn't make sense either. If you can hit a wildly maneuvering target within 5 seconds you should be able to hit a stationary target at way longer distances from an accuracy point of view.