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Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: September 27, 2013, 08:27:19 AM »

I completely agree... I limit myself to primary ASM at size four and above. At this level I find that missiles are pretty balanced.

I only employ missiles smaller than four for low volume anti-fighter/FAC/missile duty.

This tend to make the game pretty balanced overall.
Posted by: Paul M
« on: September 27, 2013, 06:44:24 AM »

I'm not saying that shock damage won't cause changes, what I mean is that the reason the small missile zerg works is that you can't stop them and that doesn't change.  Also even a small missile has a chance for shock damage, but due to the fact you get hit not with the odd leaker but 100 of them what is the cumulative chance that you take damage inside your armour belt anyway?  Finally it doesn't stop someone doing exactly what is done now of loading up box launchers with large numbers of long range size 1 missiles and simply blowing the enemy out of space by sheer numbers of hits.  Shock damage only makes it more interesting if you are so dumb as to not follow the herd and use larger missiles.
Posted by: Erik L
« on: September 26, 2013, 01:29:33 PM »

Quote from: Paul M on September 26, 2013, 12:01:14 PM
Erik when I looked through the rules the channel number seemed rather generous to the point I didn't think it would limit the number of missiles significantly.  But I have to admit that was quick perusal of the rules without any playtesting.  I would not mind seeing limits in Aurora but that would tend to just make people invest in self guided missiles no?  Or since the space is fairly miminimal just put on multiple fire controls.

I agree that the numbers in the game overall need a good going over. If anyone has a better idea, I'd certainly be willing to listen :)
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: September 26, 2013, 12:09:04 PM »

Quote from: Paul M on September 26, 2013, 10:58:30 AM
My point is that it is a decision of game mechanics how the box launcher works so you can find a "technobabble" justification for limiting it to the speed you want without that much difficulty.

In starfire, where the box launcher comes from, the capacity of a single box launcher is not particularily large and so while it is good for small ships to push their broadside up to the point where it might do something it is otherwise not the best launcher choice.  For ships that might not survive to launch twice (WP Assault ships) it would be an option.

In Aurora due to the fact that it allows huge launches of size 1 missiles, that simply can't be stopped by a reasonable level of point defence it breaks the game.  But that is a symptom of the fact that a size 1 missile with a weak warhead is still viable for doing damage due to the ablative armour concept.  Shock damage is not a factor.  I can stop the larger missiles because the salvo density is lower...so the fact the odd one slips through is less of a danger than the fact the smaller missiles will just obliterate the ship targeted exactly as they do now.  Why bother changing your set up?  I don't see that shock damage does anything to fix the issue.

The cost of a fire control system?  In money?  I'd think that really doesn't play much of a role does it?  I'd think that people will do what gives them the biggest advantage and cost be damned.  Not being a min-maxer I have a hard time figuring out what is behind their thinking.

I would not discount the chock damage effect of the next version so easily, we will have to wait and see. I agree it is not enough to fix the ablative armour imbalance.

I would also say that the extra cost of fire-control is quite significant to the cost of missiles launchers and magazines. Since the cost directly translate into higher wealth, mineral and build cost/time it will matter. It will also impact quite severely on your upgrade time/cost when you replace those systems if you need more fire-controls on the ship when you want to replace them.
i
I'm not a min-maxer when I play but I like to think in those terms anyway outside of the game. I always role-play and limit myself in many ways. Including forcing myself to launch a fixed number of missiles per salvo and fire-control etc..

Most of my missile ships will be similar to real modern ships with 25% reduction in size and no additional magazines except for AMM missile systems. I usually restrict each salvo to about five missiles fired per fire-control at any one time and I don't allow my ships to fire all missiles in one go either, usually a maximum of 1/5 if they are not fired with box launchers on a smaller platform with smaller missiles. I don't use a hard and fast rule, these are only my own guide lines to make it more interesting.

If we had all of the changes from chock damage, solve size and none ablative armour we would see a more interesting mix of missile types. At least I think we would.
Posted by: Paul M
« on: September 26, 2013, 12:01:14 PM »

In Attack Vector Tactical, missiles are so dangerous (basically a single hit can cascade through your ship in most cases) that they are used mainly as ways of constraining or forcing the targetted ships maneuvering options since if a missile is bearing in on you, your only option is to to maneuver away from it.   They basically are force multipliers of your other onboard weapons by keeping the enemy from maneuvering out of them.

Erik when I looked through the rules the channel number seemed rather generous to the point I didn't think it would limit the number of missiles significantly.  But I have to admit that was quick perusal of the rules without any playtesting.  I would not mind seeing limits in Aurora but that would tend to just make people invest in self guided missiles no?  Or since the space is fairly miminimal just put on multiple fire controls.

But to me the problem exists because of the ablative armour mechanic, all the rest are just symptoms of that disease.
Posted by: Erik L
« on: September 26, 2013, 11:23:35 AM »

This whole discussion is why when I first designed Astra Imperia I included sensor channels. Each thing you track, including your own missiles requires a sensor channel. This limits the number of things that are on the board at any one time. And yes, there are ways of increasing the channel pool.
Posted by: Paul M
« on: September 26, 2013, 10:58:30 AM »

My point is that it is a decision of game mechanics how the box launcher works so you can find a "technobabble" justification for limiting it to the speed you want without that much difficulty.

In starfire, where the box launcher comes from, the capacity of a single box launcher is not particularily large and so while it is good for small ships to push their broadside up to the point where it might do something it is otherwise not the best launcher choice.  For ships that might not survive to launch twice (WP Assault ships) it would be an option.

In Aurora due to the fact that it allows huge launches of size 1 missiles, that simply can't be stopped by a reasonable level of point defence it breaks the game.  But that is a symptom of the fact that a size 1 missile with a weak warhead is still viable for doing damage due to the ablative armour concept.  Shock damage is not a factor.  I can stop the larger missiles because the salvo density is lower...so the fact the odd one slips through is less of a danger than the fact the smaller missiles will just obliterate the ship targeted exactly as they do now.  Why bother changing your set up?  I don't see that shock damage does anything to fix the issue.

The cost of a fire control system?  In money?  I'd think that really doesn't play much of a role does it?  I'd think that people will do what gives them the biggest advantage and cost be damned.  Not being a min-maxer I have a hard time figuring out what is behind their thinking.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: September 26, 2013, 07:15:54 AM »

Quote from: Paul M on September 26, 2013, 05:32:03 AM
Heat is a much larger problem in a vacuum then in an atmosphere.  In a vacuum cooling is accomplished only by radiation and that is basically at very low rate unless the object is quite hot.  Cooling is the biggest issue that a warship would have, as waste heat would build up very quickly.  Attack Vector Tactical or Mass Effect are essentially correct on this point; the former messing up how their heat sinks would work since they violate the thermodynamical law that heat flows from hot to cold (the heat sink can't be hotter than the object you are sinking heat out of).

If you have a mass driver launch mechanism then you do not have a "box" launcher.  You could use a cold launch mechanism (gas blast) but that would slow down your launch rate again since no matter what you do, you would not want a collision between launching missiles...you would get also a staggered powerup to ensure that again a failure doesn't happen and so on.  There is no reason you can not say that a box launcher fires but a single missile per 5 s (or whatever) interval.  That would still leave them useful for larger missiles and for convience but not make them so overpowered that they are the only sensible option.

Small missiles are nerfed the second that you stop using ablative armour, until you do that you are bandaging a sucking chest wound as far as I am concerned.

There is nothing wrong with a limit on how many missiles a ship can command per fire control but the reality is that becomes irrelevant as the mass of a fire control is not significant and so if I have 10 of them rather than 1 it won't alter the situation that much.

I'm certainly not going to argue whether Box launchers can use a rail-gun mechanism or not. I don't know how much space it would take with technology that exist in Aurora.

I know that heat is a bigger problem in space, so I didn't mean that the heat in and of itself was the problem, rather that it's easier to propel the missile out from the ship without igniting the missile engine due to that there is no gravity pulling it down.
Although, the gauss principle would probably be more probable and should take very little space to propel a missile a few dozen meters in a matter of seconds.

The thing about fire-control is not so much the size as the cost, fire-controls is very expensive.

I do agree with the ablative armour style mechanic. I do like the Newtonian aurora damage model where the armour model is better and if we had that I would be quite happy. Here, armour will have some minimal resistance and can withstand smaller damage without being destroyed. Nuclear missiles would not intercept ships either which is quite ridiculous given their speed in Aurora anyway.

With 6.3 we will get chock damage which obviously will make a missile with larger warheads much more important. So there will be some band-aid mechanics in place to spice things up.  :)
Posted by: alex_brunius
« on: September 26, 2013, 06:36:29 AM »

Quote from: Paul M on September 26, 2013, 05:32:03 AM
Small missiles are nerfed the second that you stop using ablative armour,

Agreed 100%. Even if ship armor would just get one point of damage absorption per 10 ablative layers, it would be very simple to counter AMM spam missiles.
Posted by: Paul M
« on: September 26, 2013, 05:32:03 AM »

Heat is a much larger problem in a vacuum then in an atmosphere.  In a vacuum cooling is accomplished only by radiation and that is basically at very low rate unless the object is quite hot.  Cooling is the biggest issue that a warship would have, as waste heat would build up very quickly.  Attack Vector Tactical or Mass Effect are essentially correct on this point; the former messing up how their heat sinks would work since they violate the thermodynamical law that heat flows from hot to cold (the heat sink can't be hotter than the object you are sinking heat out of).

If you have a mass driver launch mechanism then you do not have a "box" launcher.  You could use a cold launch mechanism (gas blast) but that would slow down your launch rate again since no matter what you do, you would not want a collision between launching missiles...you would get also a staggered powerup to ensure that again a failure doesn't happen and so on.  There is no reason you can not say that a box launcher fires but a single missile per 5 s (or whatever) interval.  That would still leave them useful for larger missiles and for convience but not make them so overpowered that they are the only sensible option.

Small missiles are nerfed the second that you stop using ablative armour, until you do that you are bandaging a sucking chest wound as far as I am concerned.

There is nothing wrong with a limit on how many missiles a ship can command per fire control but the reality is that becomes irrelevant as the mass of a fire control is not significant and so if I have 10 of them rather than 1 it won't alter the situation that much.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: September 26, 2013, 02:49:56 AM »

Although launches in space would probably not need to dissipate energy in the same way as you would inside an atmosphere and gravity being an issue. I'm pretty certain that missiles in space would be ejected by a rail-gun mechanic or similar and then missiles internal drives would start when the missile is at a safe distance from the ship hull.

We would still, in my opinion, be limited to a certain number of missiles launched depending on how advanced the missile fire-controls are and the actual launch mechanism. So having a technology for this purpose and then limit each fire-control to s set number of missiles in a salve would go a long way of balancing this whole problem.

This would also make larger missiles have a slight advantage over smaller missiles since they would require less fire-controls per mass of missiles. I think we need some more advantages for larger missiles and nerf smaller missiles as a whole anyway, so this would be a good thing I think. 
Posted by: Paul M
« on: September 26, 2013, 02:13:56 AM »

A box launcher would only be able to launch 1 missile every 5 seconds (or whatever your hightest speed launch cycle is) because multiple missile launches would overstress the "cooling system*" 

This would prevent you launching 50 missile salvos but give you a way to launch effectively any size missile quickly.

*cooling system is probably wrong, but it is what limits a VLS launch rate since the hot exhaust gases are an issue.  In Aurora the reason likely is different but still that much energy from the missile drives would be something to dissipate...since a box launch of 50 size one missiles is then the same as a size 50 missile energy wise.

Regardless, modern systems can't easily do multiple missile launches and putting in a rule like that for Aurora would leave the system functional and useful without making it overpowered.

I would also either outright limit the armour thickness of a ship with Box launchers or else reduce the armour in specific locations as the box would dramatically weaken the ships armour belt.  Also any impact on the hull in those locations should hit the launcher (and the doors on the box and the box itself would have a HTK).  Which should cause a check for fratricide if the launcher is hit.
Posted by: Hazard
« on: September 25, 2013, 03:09:12 PM »

Another option would be to add a (tech) line to Missile Fire Control systems that determines how many missiles they can control at any single moment, call it 'Salvo Size.'

Missiles with electromagnetic, thermal or active sensors of their own can still be launched in salvoes of unlimited size but their relatively limited sensor power would help counter that strength, as well as the trade off in yield, speed and range needed to mount a sensor that's actually useful.
Posted by: alex_brunius
« on: September 23, 2013, 08:53:52 AM »

If we need more drawbacks for box launchers to make them balanced a very logical one (besides those already mentioned) is that they should be located outside the armor.

So any hits to the box launcher area of the ship will detonate the missiles too. If you got your entire ship full of launchers well... BoooooM.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: September 23, 2013, 07:56:43 AM »

Although Box launchers are not really equivalent as VLA launchers. I usually view 25% launchers the equivalent of a VLA launcher since you can rearm them in space it just take allot of time to do so. Box launchers are more like the launch mechanism on a airplane where you need to replace them in a hangar or base. VLA on a ship can be replaced at sea if necessary, if memory serves me right.

Anyway I build most of my warships on the VLA principle most of the time with no magazine on the ship to replenish the launcher, I need a collier ship for that.

Box launcher should really be the easiest system to fit on any ship, the problem with replenish them should be a good enough drawback. The problem is that ships can fire ALL missiles in one salvo which make them hard to defend against, that is the main problem and is somewhat unrealistic. There is no current VLA system, capable to launch all missiles in a 5 second period. Fire-controls should have limits on the number of missiles in a salvo as there should be limits to how many missiles can be launched at any one time unless you dedicate space for all those launches.

The main benefit of VLA over rail launch mechanism is that you can launch a much broader variety of missiles with VLA and the fire rate is higher.