Author Topic: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions  (Read 345396 times)

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Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #915 on: January 11, 2019, 03:30:12 PM »
Something else to consider is allowing players to apply subspecies mods to their ground forces, and have colony cost modify their HP (or supply/maintenance consumption). That way you could play gene tweaking as being pioneered in order to harden soldiers against extreme cold or low gravity operational environments, and then rolled out for general civilian deployment in colonist communities.
While the extra possibilities of that are appealing, at the same time I'd worry about the extra complexity. I mean ground combat is already getting a lot more complicated, it would be easy to get carried away and go too far.

If you wanted to add more genetics/biology options then I'd prefer to see something else. How about "advanced medicine" research that reduced the chance of serious illness/death events for leaders?

Or even biological warfare? W40k is full of viral bombing of planets. Hard to get the balance right. Perhaps a weapon that kills a % of the population but that had be deployed on the ground as a unit weapon rather than from a missile? Then you'd need to at least force a landing, rather than just nuke from space. I'd assume the % starts small and then increases for each extra research level.

The follow up questions would be whether soldiers are also killed, or do we assume them to have sealed battle suits anyway? And would you also create a tech line to reduce the impact? Maybe a "Viral containment unit" vehicle component so that we can have unmarked trucks full of haz-mat suited scientists and soldiers "cleaning up" infected areas.

I've been considering biological/chemical warfare for a long time and I will add it as an option at some point, including suitable installations, ship modules, etc.. The agent would have incubation, infection and mortality rates that would vary by species and could alter (or jump species) through mutation. You would need living examples of species for the best understanding and/or effectiveness. I would track infection on population, ships, etc. as there might be infections that are not immediately apparent.
 

Offline Panopticon

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #916 on: January 11, 2019, 03:42:55 PM »
I like the idea of targeted biological weapons, perhaps a basic line of research like Bio-Weapon Efficiency 10/20/30 or whatever that sets the default mortality rate of a bio-weapon, then targeted weapons for a race unlock once you have access to a population or a few hundred captured prisoners, allowing for biological warheads to be developed for that race, heck maybe even be deployed by espionage teams?

Perhaps a defensive tech line too that reduces bio-weapon efficiency and allows for targeted vaccines to be produced once the population becomes aware of a virus' existence.

For extra fun(in the Dwarf Fortress meaning of the word) you can have a very small chance of a virus escaping your labs and maybe even mutating once you start researching on it and then it be something you have to deal with on your own, though I imagine the chance of that would have to be very low to make the tech tree worth the risk.
 

Offline Hazard

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #917 on: January 11, 2019, 06:26:24 PM »
I've been considering biological/chemical warfare for a long time and I will add it as an option at some point, including suitable installations, ship modules, etc.. The agent would have incubation, infection and mortality rates that would vary by species and could alter (or jump species) through mutation. You would need living examples of species for the best understanding and/or effectiveness. I would track infection on population, ships, etc. as there might be infections that are not immediately apparent.

Well, chemical warfare is already a thing (just put some terraformers in orbit and have them dump some decidedly unsafe substance in the atmosphere), and there's quite frankly nothing that a more aimed chemical weapon deployment can't do that can't be done just by shoving more missiles in orbital bombardment roles at it. Nukes are pretty good at hitting soft targets. The only exceptions to that would be highly specific targets with minimal collateral damage or targets where taking a nuke in is implausible but sufficient poison gas can be sourced locally, which are all ground combat tasks anyway.

Biological warfare would work pretty well with a biosphere implementation. Although plagues directed at the local sophont population is the most obvious, modern societies are actually pretty good at handling pandemics, so planets not subject to unrest should be rather resistant to a plague strike, especially after the first wave of symptomatic patients enter the hospitals. A pathogen aimed at a chunk of the biosphere or a crop blight strike though? It can cause almost as many casualties through famine, just few directly. And much, much harder to detect and thus counter in time.
 

Offline Garfunkel

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #918 on: January 11, 2019, 07:42:17 PM »
Probably something for C# 2.0 as it would certainly require new buildings and modules, plus balancing it and finding a niche for chem/bio warfare can be tricky.
 

Offline Father Tim

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #919 on: January 11, 2019, 10:56:18 PM »
The problem with Chemical & Biological warfare is that it starts creeping back into "kill 'em all and move in tomorrow" territory.  I think the assumption about B&C is that it kills enemy populations & ground units, but does not harm installations.  In that case, it needs sufficient downside (perhaps in the chance of rendering the entire planet uninhabitable, or covered in "grey goo," or creating Resident Evil-style enhanced monsters).
 

Offline Scandinavian

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #920 on: January 12, 2019, 01:28:40 AM »
I'd exclude both chemical and biological weapons from scope, though for different reasons.

Chemical weapons are mainly terror weapons, and the political simulation isn't really sophisticated enough to handle terror tactics. They do have some situational tactical use, but only on the same level as things like land mines and cluster bombs, and Aurora does not model weapons design doctrine on that level of detail even in the new ground combat model.

Biological weapons, by contrast, fall off the other end of the scope range - like Father Tim said, they get into colony drop territory. While it's reasonable to think people would develop and use them, it's also reasonable to think people would accelerate large asteroids to the kind of speeds usually associated with mass extinction events and throw them at populated planets. Aurora doesn't model that either, and for much the same reason.

Then there is the question of how the game portrays atrocities in general While glassing a planet from orbit is certainly an atrocity, most of Aurora's audience will be culturally conditioned to not really regard terror bombing by air or naval (and by extension orbital) forces as a war crime. All the more mundane horrors of warfare - artificial famines, mass displacement of the population, pogroms, mistreatment of prisoners, insurgency and counterinsurgency tactics, etc. - are not modeled in Aurora, even though many of them are directly strategically relevant at the scale the simulation takes place at. To the extent that this is a deliberate design decision, biological weapons strike me as off the tone Aurora seems to be aiming for.

As cool as it admittedly would be to have one of your xenoarcheology teams find a crashed ship full of eggs and bring some back for the Company's bioweapons division, I think that works better as a ruins event that eats part of your archaeological expedition than it would as a full game feature.
 

Offline Garfunkel

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #921 on: January 12, 2019, 03:32:01 PM »
And those are really good points too. Chemical weapons are already a mostly obsolete - from military POV - because protection from most of them is easy for an advanced military. The only exception being the advanced nerve agents that require full body protective suits. In Aurora, even such agents would be harmless as the ground units are capable of operating in hard vacuum and toxic atmospheres. Thus it would remain as a method of civilian control by internal security forces, the way it's mostly used today. Unless you want to invent TN-chemicals that eat through power armour while being moved by air currents, and that's not something that is really useful in C#, because large scale use of really dangerous chemical agents has been to deny enemy the use of certain area, for example to isolate a breakthrough zone from reinforcements. And that doesn't matter since C# doesn't model ground terrain control between opposing forces. Tear gas ability could give a ground unit increased Suppression value for pacifying populations, but that's about it IMHO.

Since Aurora doesn't really model food production, that aspect of biological weapons would be useless, leaving us with plagues as a way to terror a population. A weapon that you can launch from a distance that reduces production efficiency, increases unrest and halts population growth temporarily is an interesting option, especially if Steve introduces counter-methods in the form of increased/improved public health facilities, BG tech that improves immune systems of the population and other such things.

Neither one should be a one-button "get rid of enemy units and populations while leaving installations intact" option.
 

Offline Hazard

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #922 on: January 12, 2019, 05:29:42 PM »
Actually, there's a number of chemical agents that could work against power armour, most of them extremely high strength oxidizers like FOOF (dioxygen difluoride) and ClF3 (chlorine trifluoride). These substances are intensely aggressive, react with everything including things you'd swear can't burn and often leave large clouds of toxic waste products, like chlorine and fluorine gas.

Any even vaguely sensible munitions or chemical safety expert will tell you only a madman would try and carry these things around rather than produce them in situ from much more controllable substances.
 

Offline Seolferwulf

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #923 on: January 12, 2019, 07:58:07 PM »
CIF3 missile warheads sound like fun, melting the opponents crew members if it punches through the hull.
Maybe something to support boarding attempts?
 

Offline drejr

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #924 on: January 13, 2019, 01:06:25 AM »
Just because something is dangerous doesn't mean it's a good weapon.

On the subject of biologicals, please don't give the Swarm acid spit or bone guns.
 
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Offline Father Tim

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #925 on: January 13, 2019, 04:32:46 AM »
How about two data-entry boxes on the New Game Settings window, where we can specify the name we want Aurora to use for Safe Greenhouse Gas, and Anti-Greenhouse Gas.  That way everybody can be happy wth their latin, greek, pseudo-latin, or even proto-Indus names.

(I intend to name mine after a couple of my scientists.)
 

Offline Hazard

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #926 on: January 13, 2019, 04:33:16 AM »
CIF3 missile warheads sound like fun, melting the opponents crew members if it punches through the hull.
Maybe something to support boarding attempts?

The USA once spilled a ton or so of ClF3 while loading it for transport.

It ate the storage tank.

It ate the 1 foot thick concrete floor.

It ate the 1 foot thick layer of gravel beneath the 1 foot thick concrete floor.

It ate another 3 feet or so of dirt beneath the 1 foot thick layer of gravel below the 1 foot thick concrete floor.

The problem with ClF3 is that it's so aggressive that the only thing it won't react with is the fluorine salts of some of the structural metals, like copper and iron. You can make a layer of such salts by carefully exposing the metal to ClF3 fumes, which lets you transport it, but it comes with the disadvantage that if it's scratched off while in contact with ClF3? That's not a careful exposure, it will react, violently, and cause it to melt, exposing more of the metal as the metal-fluorine fire continues and containment failure is certain and imminent.

And having that happen in your ship might actually be more dangerous than a magazine explosion.
 
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Offline space dwarf

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #927 on: January 13, 2019, 06:20:32 AM »
On the subject of biologicals, please don't give the Swarm acid spit or bone guns.

Oh, this for sure. Its been done so many times that I hope it's not the "new weapons" Steve was talking about
 

Offline Tree

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #928 on: January 13, 2019, 07:39:57 AM »
Didn't Steve said the new Swarm would take inspiration from the Tyranids? They definitely use the first, not sure about the second.
 

Offline Seolferwulf

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #929 on: January 13, 2019, 08:41:27 AM »
CIF3 missile warheads sound like fun, melting the opponents crew members if it punches through the hull.
Maybe something to support boarding attempts?

The USA once spilled a ton or so of ClF3 while loading it for transport.

It ate the storage tank.

It ate the 1 foot thick concrete floor.

It ate the 1 foot thick layer of gravel beneath the 1 foot thick concrete floor.

It ate another 3 feet or so of dirt beneath the 1 foot thick layer of gravel below the 1 foot thick concrete floor.

The problem with ClF3 is that it's so aggressive that the only thing it won't react with is the fluorine salts of some of the structural metals, like copper and iron. You can make a layer of such salts by carefully exposing the metal to ClF3 fumes, which lets you transport it, but it comes with the disadvantage that if it's scratched off while in contact with ClF3? That's not a careful exposure, it will react, violently, and cause it to melt, exposing more of the metal as the metal-fluorine fire continues and containment failure is certain and imminent.

And having that happen in your ship might actually be more dangerous than a magazine explosion.

I'm not a chemist but wouldn't it be possible to split it into less dangerous components and store them separately?
Just add a mechanism to the warhead to mix the components on impact.