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Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: June 06, 2020, 06:17:34 PM »

Quote from: Father Tim on June 06, 2020, 06:04:10 PM
I've never heard of the liquid hydrogen measurement before, but the "one hull space equals one megalitre of water" definition has been used.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10099.msg108545#msg108545

;)

If you go with 50t equal to 1000 cubic meters that is probably not too bad to imagine as it is not too far of the liquid hydrogen method.
Posted by: Father Tim
« on: June 06, 2020, 06:04:10 PM »

Quote from: Ulzgoroth on May 21, 2020, 02:17:38 PM
There's a problem with what imagery you get if you look at tonnage as displacement tons volume vs. tonnage as actual tonnage. . .

. . .Aurora armor mechanics suggest tonnage-as-volume. The engine mechanics might suggest tonnage-as-mass, but who knows how TN engines actually work? Their performance might be governed by volume rather than mass. Shock damage depends on ship tonnage, but I'm not sure whether that really makes sense for either interpretation. . .

. . .I think I've heard what Iceranger refers to the Traveller displacement ton. Not sure why we'd think that's what Aurora uses?

Aurora defines tonnage as a measure of displacement, not mass, and the armour calculation uses 'one hull space (50 tons) equals one thousand cubic meters' (10m x 10m x 10m) and assumes a spherical ship.  Engine mechanics use tonnage (hull spaces) -- and therefore volume -- to calculate speed.

I've never heard of the liquid hydrogen measurement before, but the "one hull space equals one megalitre of water" definition has been used.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: May 28, 2020, 12:47:29 PM »

Quote from: sneer on May 28, 2020, 03:31:02 AM
I don't build ships below 10kt ( usually go in 10kt steps ) with 20-30kt most popular size for early to mid game
higher tonnage means I can easily put 2 or 3 weapon systems as loss of efficiency on higher tonnage is not significant
My fleet can be most often locked into 2-3 types of ships which I can refit if needed and which are all around ships
beams +gauss for 10/20kt and beam + gauss +box launchers for 30/40kt and bigger
knocking any ship out of the line in battle doesn't make any hole in combat capabilities  (sensor/offence/PD)- only percentage overall reduction
it is cheaper in the long run , easier in refits , easier with managing shipyards , and finally I don't loose many ships this way (smaller ships are really very fragile)

Yes... the survival ability of larger ships can't be understated as well as they are way better to withstand chock damage that smaller ships will have to deal with allot more often.
Posted by: sneer
« on: May 28, 2020, 03:31:02 AM »

I don't build ships below 10kt ( usually go in 10kt steps ) with 20-30kt most popular size for early to mid game
higher tonnage means I can easily put 2 or 3 weapon systems as loss of efficiency on higher tonnage is not significant
My fleet can be most often locked into 2-3 types of ships which I can refit if needed and which are all around ships
beams +gauss for 10/20kt and beam + gauss +box launchers for 30/40kt and bigger
knocking any ship out of the line in battle doesn't make any hole in combat capabilities  (sensor/offence/PD)- only percentage overall reduction
it is cheaper in the long run , easier in refits , easier with managing shipyards , and finally I don't loose many ships this way (smaller ships are really very fragile) 
 
Posted by: macks
« on: May 28, 2020, 12:09:13 AM »

My most efficient designs seem to be around 10kt. Seems to me to be a nice size that can be produced quickly enough during conflict but also slow enough that the yards aren't dormant outside of conflict either. The ships themselves can usually fit 2 or 3 specialty roles in the somewhat tight space available, like shields, pd, armor, sensors, fuel, or whatever.
Posted by: Michael Sandy
« on: May 26, 2020, 02:26:11 PM »

One of the advantages large missile ships can have is a large variety of fire controls.  It may be overkill to use anti-ship missiles against fighters, but you can do it.

Back in VBAurora, I liked having large missile ships that had an extremely long range fire control, and also enough .1 HS fire controls to assign 1 fire control to each launcher, in order to be more difficult for enemy AMMs to shoot down.  In C#, beam PD doesn't care much about volley size.

One of my early experiments was commercial engined missile ships, that treated engines as armor, and were magazine heavy, with the intent that they could have a future career as colliers.  I was using commercial engined survey ships then, so the missile ships could use the survey support jump tenders, but I was not happy with the performance of the grav survey commercial ships, and switched to 800 ton grav survey boats.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: May 22, 2020, 06:49:55 AM »

In Aurora they usually follow the same pattern as in real life because they are driven by the same type of race that battleships had. That is more and powerful armour and defensive capabilities with larger shield generators, power plants more redundancy in fire-controls coverage, damage control capabilities and more.

But in order to support larger ship you also need a more advance infrastructure, logistics organisation and the research to get the components needed to benefit from really large ships.

Sure... it is pointless to deploy a 50kt ship if one or two 10kt ships could do the same thing. This is also why having multiple types of ships is a good thing. But having 200 10kt ships might be complete overkill in that department when you might be much better of with 50 10kt ships and 20 50kt ships and two 250kt ships instead as an example. Those 250kt ships will get your best captains and staff you have available to take full advantage of all that power in one place.
Posted by: QuakeIV
« on: May 21, 2020, 10:15:36 PM »

Ships only grow in size with technology insofar as there is a reason to make a ship as massive as you possibly can.

For instance, carriers tend to scale quite nicely with size.  Battleships in their time did as well.
Posted by: spartacus
« on: May 21, 2020, 07:11:54 PM »

Quote from: Jorgen_CAB on May 21, 2020, 04:32:41 PM
In my games ship sizes simply grow with time as the economy and research progress, this seems like a very natural progression.

Historically speaking this is absolutely correct.

Ville de Paris 1850 version not 1764, a behemoth ship of the line in her day 5302 tons

USS Maine of Havana fame, launched 1889, displaced 6789 tons

HMS Dreadnought first of the the new generation of capital ships 18000 tons 21000 fully loaded

USS Missouri of Tokyo Bay fame 40820 tons.

As technology has permitted the size of the capital ships of their day have grown to take advantage of it.  Everything else follows apace as well.  Consider a modern Ticonderoga class Aegis Cruiser of the US navy even with the design philosophy discounting armor as no longer practical due the destructive power of modern weapons still displaces 9800 tons fully loaded, quite a bit larger than the battleship of a hundred years earlier, the Maine was launched 92 years before the USS Ticonderoga.
Posted by: QuakeIV
« on: May 21, 2020, 05:28:25 PM »

Taking a break from work so didn't read the whole thread, I would say PD varient has very little magazine capacity compared to tonnage)/number of launchers.  I recommend a lot more missile fire control as well, I have gone as extreme as one fire control per four launchers.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: May 21, 2020, 04:32:41 PM »

There is absolutely nothing wrong with calling a 30kt ship for a destroyer in aurora as ship sizes are completely relative to the type of economy and what you can support and research. Size are generally dictated by the type of components you put into the ships such as Jump Drives, Engines, shields, cloaking devices etc... components that you can scale with size to make big ships even more powerful.

If you have the economy/research to support large ships I see no reason why you should not build them. Large ships have allot of advantages but small ships also have advantages.

I would say that a healthy mix of different ship sizes for different reasons are quite useful from a strategical perspective.

In my games ship sizes simply grow with time as the economy and research progress, this seems like a very natural progression.

Small ships have a big advantage that you can produce them faster per tonnage and they are stealthier. Large ship have the benefit of being allot more efficient per tonnage and much harder to destroy.

Investment in large ships is a long term commitment. Small ships are better because you can ramp up very high production of new high quality ships very fast. It is very easy to construct one or two 1000t yards where you can mass-produce 25-50 FAC per year. But you will most likely see these yards dormant 95% of the time as the only time yo use at full capacity would be during a war.

On the other hand... your two 50.000 ton yards capable of producing three cruisers creates perhaps three ships every four to five years or so... but these ships are extremely powerful for its size and are ships you will nurture and take care of for many decades.. perhaps as much as a hundred years.

Whatever you call a ship should in my opinion be based on their role and not have much to do with size in and of itself... at least that is how I do it. Now... ships do tend to end up in size similarities with reality, but that is because the roles are similar to how those ships were used in reality so the tend to fall into the same type of spectrum.

So... on the bottom scale of capital ships I usually have the frigate. This would generally be a ship that are in some way self sufficient and tend to operate alone. They tend to be highly specialised ships in some way such as reconnaissance, scouting, patrol or similar duties.
The next would be the typical destroyer and these could vary in size quite allot even within the class... mostly because they will have been developed over many decades in many variants. Older destroyers tend to become destroyer escorts with the task to protect commercial shipping in all forms while more modern destroyers are the main protectors of other capital ships or who perform reconnaissance in force missions. These ships need to be enough self sufficient to operate in small squadrons alone.
The next class is the cruiser who is a large capital ships tasked with long range patrol and high strike capabilities without supporting elements other than destroyers. They will tend to be a fair bit larger than destroyers as they are meant to actually engage enemy by any means necessary so will need to perform will in all fields.
By the time I get to more specialised larger capital ships i generally have neither carrier or battleships but rather battle carriers... a battle carrier is a monstrosity of a ship designed only to for war and to do it very well with a combination of powerful beam weapons and strike crafts. They should be able to perform in any capacity on the field. A ship this size can't be lost because they are caught in a bad situation.

The actual size of any of the above ships would depend entirely on the circumstances... destroyers tend to be about 10-20kt in most of my games while cruisers are 30-50kt and battle carriers at whatever size I can build them.

In most early games I would not have much of any capital ships at all since I would not have the technology to really support them so I would have to make due with a mix of frigates and destroyer type ships. I would also have many other different ship types such as light carrier, escort carriers, assault carriers, jump tenders, command ships, mine layers and more...
Posted by: Borealis4x
« on: May 21, 2020, 03:39:02 PM »

Quote from: Ulzgoroth on May 21, 2020, 03:33:14 PM
Quote from: BasileusMaximos on May 21, 2020, 03:28:32 PM
Quote from: Suxxor on May 21, 2020, 03:25:01 PM
30k for a destroyer. One can imagine what battleship would look like. Just nitpicking.

200,000 tons by my system.

Realistically, I dont think that's too crazy even if it is in the game. The Nimitz is 100,000 tons.
'Only' twice the tonnage of a super-carrier and nearly three times the tonnage of the largest battleships ever?

Granted though it's not impossibly large. I'd definitely believe something that big could be built though maybe not that it should be.

Well, its the far future where we have magic rocks that break physics so I'd say having a Nimitz x2 isnt unreasonable. Plus it's in space so size isnt as big an issue.

Unreasonable would be the 1 million ton Supercarrier I want to build that carrys it's own escorting frigates.
Posted by: Ulzgoroth
« on: May 21, 2020, 03:33:14 PM »

Quote from: BasileusMaximos on May 21, 2020, 03:28:32 PM
Quote from: Suxxor on May 21, 2020, 03:25:01 PM
30k for a destroyer. One can imagine what battleship would look like. Just nitpicking.

200,000 tons by my system.

Realistically, I dont think that's too crazy even if it is in the game. The Nimitz is 100,000 tons.
'Only' twice the tonnage of a super-carrier and nearly three times the tonnage of the largest battleships ever?

Granted though it's not impossibly large. I'd definitely believe something that big could be built though maybe not that it should be.
Posted by: liveware
« on: May 21, 2020, 03:32:42 PM »

Quote from: Zincat on May 21, 2020, 01:57:43 PM
I'll be honest, this is the thing that has always bothered me the most of Aurora. EVER. Ships are tiny!
We are in space damnit. I want at LEAST sizes comparable to Star Wars ships ;D

I'm not exactly sure if this is the case, but since tons were linearly linked to hull size in vb aurora, I would assume that a "ton" is basically a ton of displacement, as seen in modern wet navies. So, more or less one cubic meter.

Assuming for simplicity's sake a parallelepiped with proportions of 5 length, 2 width and 1 height, a 10000 tons ship is
50mx20mx10m. That's... barely a corvette. Barely.

IIrc, from all the models I remember, a star wars cruiser is at least 500m long. With those proportions, 500x200x100m = 10millions. So a cruiser in Aurora should be at LEAST 10 millions tons.

Battleships eh, let's assume 800m long... 800x320x160= 40.96 million tons at a very bare minimum.

Sooooo frustrating XD Are we flying around in banged up trashcans?

I roleplay things in my mind to be at least 10x times as big as the game tells me they are XD
And let's not go into warhammer 40k, where battleships are at least approximately 7km long (other sources say 9km), and about 3 km tall and 2 km wide.....

Many many moons ago I had sick book with detailed ship stats and engineering drawings for ALL ships in the starwars universe (including associated novels). As I recall, a super star destroyer of the Executor class was something like 7 or 8 kilometers long.
Posted by: Borealis4x
« on: May 21, 2020, 03:28:32 PM »

Quote from: Suxxor on May 21, 2020, 03:25:01 PM
30k for a destroyer. One can imagine what battleship would look like. Just nitpicking.

200,000 tons by my system.

Realistically, I dont think that's too crazy even if it is in the game. The Nimitz is 100,000 tons.