C# Aurora Changes Discussion

[DIT_grue]

It'd be a bit weird for a force of light titans to be able to compete against heavy titans.  Rather than trying to juggle titan vs titan, why not refocus the balance.  The heavier titans become progressively less effective at their ground unit combat, as they sacrifice agility and lighter, more agile weapons for their heavy armor and heavy weapons to focus on killing other titans.  So light titans would be vastly more effective at overrunning ground units, Medium titans would strike a balance between titan combat and infantry combat abilities, and heavy titans would be entirely geared towards destroying other titans, even at the risk of leaving themselves less capable at clearing out normal units.  This leaves lighter titan classes with a combat niche even as the larger ones are unlocked, while still driving players to develop heavier titans to try and neutralize the enemy titans quicker.

The same amount of damage, spread evenly over three small Titans, will be repaired three times faster than it would if done to a single large Titan (of course, they can be expected to take three times as much damage during standard combat phases). That, plus the usual research cost and having units to cover needs in separate places, are the only reasons I can see in the present description for not going as big as possible. So something like this suggestion would be welcome.

[Steve Walmsley]

It'd be a bit weird for a force of light titans to be able to compete against heavy titans.  Rather than trying to juggle titan vs titan, why not refocus the balance.  The heavier titans become progressively less effective at their ground unit combat, as they sacrifice agility and lighter, more agile weapons for their heavy armor and heavy weapons to focus on killing other titans.  So light titans would be vastly more effective at overrunning ground units, Medium titans would strike a balance between titan combat and infantry combat abilities, and heavy titans would be entirely geared towards destroying other titans, even at the risk of leaving themselves less capable at clearing out normal units.  This leaves lighter titan classes with a combat niche even as the larger ones are unlocked, while still driving players to develop heavier titans to try and neutralize the enemy titans quicker.

I was thinking on exactly these lines

I will make some adjustments on this basis and I will rename accordingly.

[TMaekler]

Was wondering if you could "synchronize" some of the values in regards to detection, size, etc.

So rather like this:

Code: [Select]

Missile Fire Control FC94-R92 (2)   Range 94.8 mkm   Resolution 92
Active Search Sensor AS116-R92 (1)   GPS 17388   Range 116.1 mkm   Resolution 92
Active Search Sensor AS57-R20 (1)   GPS 2520   Range 57.0 mkm   Resolution 20
I think it would be easier (to read) if a ship design reads like this:

Code: [Select]

Missile Fire Control FC94-R92 (2)   Range 94.8 mkm   Resolution 4.600 t
Active Search Sensor AS116-R92 (1)   GPS 17388   Range 116.1 mkm   Resolution 4.600t
Active Search Sensor AS57-R20 (1)   GPS 2520   Range 57.0 mkm   Resolution 1.000t
This then goes through the whole game. Not having different values for the same thing would make it a little easer to handle and read 

[MagusXIX]

With regard to Titan balancing, I'd treat them a bit more like WW2 era tanks since they seem to fill a similar role (hard to kill, tons of damage, expensive to produce.) One game that already takes this concept and does a really good job of it is Hearts of Iron. HoI4 has base tank models with optional sidegrades that increase specialization at the expense of other areas like armor or sacrificing certain damage types. As tech improves, you start by upgrading the base model and then you can research into the sidegrades for the new base and upgrade those as well.

For Aurora, I'd recommend having a base Titan model (upgradeable over time) that has all-around damage/defense capabilities. It's this base model that determines the overall power level of the titan. You could then have a sidegrade that takes that base model and re-imagines it to focus around anti-Titan capabilities at the expense of everything else (taking off some small arms in favor of more cannons, for instance.) You could also have one for anti-infantry (or whatever you're calling your regular ground forces.) You could even have one with some basic ground-to-space capacities, like meson cannons that can shoot out of the atmosphere and hit things in very low orbit, or act as point defense, or possibly even some light missile capabilities. Each of these sidegrades could then be upgraded once the base model is also upgraded.

It's an Aurora analogue to the HoI idea of regular tanks, anti-infantry tanks, anti-tank tanks, and anti-air tanks. The player has to decide how much of each to build and include in their military in order to counter whatever their recon suggests they might be up against, which makes for pretty interesting gameplay provided the recon and production aspects are engaging enough.

Another alternative is to just have research branches that allow us to upgrade the various aspects of our titans as we see fit. This runs the risk of not having any sidegrades, as you'd just always produce the best available suite of upgrades instead of having specialized Titans.

[MagusXIX]

Adding that I think a Titan that's effectively a mobile-bunker would be quite interesting as well. Allow a specialized type of Titan to house infantry, who can fight from inside of it. It could work similarly to the way PDC defenses work. The titan just extends its defense to any infantry attached to it.

[MagusXIX]

After further reflection, I feel that Titans would be best introduced alongside a second attack/defense type.

The regular attack/defense values can stay in pretty much as they exist, and can represent small-arms damage.

Additionally, all units should should have a defense-piercing (armor piercing, depending on how you're abstracting out your ground forces to work with your game's setup and lore) type of attack. It's an attack that always hits regardless of a unit's defense value. A defense-piercing attack, and ground units specialized around it, allows for engaging tactics and strategy decisions that don't currently exist. For instance, Titans (and perhaps other ground units) could have an extremely high defense, making them nearly immune to regular attack values but still very vulnerable to units specialized for defense-piercing attacks.

I'd consider making all attacks from ship-quality weapons (whether from an actual ship or from a PDC or orbital platform or whatever) defense-piercing.

[ChildServices]

Titans should be designable like ships/PDCs. Allow certain beam weapons on titans to negate all or part of the atmosphere penalty with some research.

[Rye123]

Titans should be designable like ships/PDCs. Allow certain beam weapons on titans to negate all or part of the atmosphere penalty with some research.

I agree with this, this can bring further customisation into ground combat.

However implementing how specific ship-based weapons like lasers or missiles would work would need further details.

[IanD]

Recovering Technology and Ship Components from Ruins

In order to prevent unbalancing tech advancements occurring while excavating very large ruins, the maximum tech advancement you can achieve from recovering abandoned installations will be based on the tech level of the ruin race. The max development cost of any associated tech will be:

(2 ^ (Ruin Race Level + 1)) * 1000;

This means a level 1 ruin race will have tech up to 4000 RP, a level 2 race up to 8000 RP, etc. with the maximum being a level 5 race with tech up to 64,000 RP.

When standard components are selected for recovery (such as gravitational survey sensors), they will be the best available component within the above limit. If no component of the specified type is available within the limit (for example when the random selection is a 5000 RP Asteroid Mining Module for a level 1 race), nothing will be recovered.
« Last Edit: Yesterday at 11:47:20 AM by Steve Walmsley »

How does this affect special ruins only tech such as compressed fuel tanks and advanced lasers?

[Steve Walmsley]

How does this affect special ruins only tech such as compressed fuel tanks and advanced lasers?

Depending on the level of ruins, you will receive a different compressed fuel storage system (small, normal, large or very large). For level 1 ruins you receive normal very large fuel storage.

At the moment advanced lasers aren't in, although you can receive spinal lasers and particle lances from ruins. Also gauss cannon turrets and all the new C# installations and components (such as refuelling stations, naval headquarters, refuelling systems & hubs, command & control systems, etc.).

[ChildServices]

However implementing how specific ship-based weapons like lasers or missiles would work would need further details.

They'd probably just work the same way those weapons do when being fired from ships, but without the atmosphere penalty.

[boggo2300]

I really hope you're going to allow us to er disallow titans,  last thing I'm gonna want is my NPR running around with giant robots

[Laurence]

I'd like to be able to rename them in some fashion... say Bolo instead of Titan. 

[IanD]

I'd like to be able to rename them in some fashion... say Bolo instead of Titan. 

Seconded!!

[Steve Walmsley]

I'd like to be able to rename them in some fashion... say Bolo instead of Titan. 

You will be able to rename them, just like you can already rename any other ground unit type in VB6.