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Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: October 31, 2014, 08:55:07 PM »

I pretty much agree with all you said... :)

On the speed issue you are right that ships need a speed based on their mission critical use, whatever that might be. But both fire power and scouting ability is equally important so however you look at it you must strike a critical balance, unless you can maintain an advantage in all three fields.

For example, good scouting ability can lead to you being able to anticipate an enemy move in time to stop them, something speed in itself can never do. Fire-power can likewise stop an enemy where speed might only allow you to run away instead of fight. So, you always need to strike a fine balance between different priorities. But I do agree that main military ships speed will always be more important than fuel economy for most military ships.

And give us real space stations that can maintain themselves. I really think there should be three categories of things to build... PDC, ships and stations.

You can, however, build modular "space stations", small enough that you can use maintenance bases to provide maintenance for them, but only when stationed at planets.
Posted by: Zincat
« on: October 31, 2014, 11:21:14 AM »

Quote from: Jorgen_CAB on October 31, 2014, 04:51:01 AM
Just because you "role-play" does not mean you can't "optimize" ship construction. It just means that under a certain set of new rules those "optimization" might look different. There are no "right" way to play the game and by definition there are no "right" way of optimizing ships in any particular way.

I did not mean "role play", in my post, as a normal game in which I play normally but care about my characters and give myself reasonable house rules. I did not explain myself though, so my bad. What i mean by role play is: giving myself some rules I want to role play no matter how unrealistic they are, and that can be really bad because obviously the ai does not follow them. For example, sometimes I play a "Beam only" game. Yes I know, the AI has missiles. No I don't use them. Yes, it's REAL bad :p
Another game I played a Romulan themed game. All of my ships HAD to be cloaked. All of them. ALL of them, no matter what. In fact I manually erased all shipping lines because the civs obviously did not have cloaked ships. THAT was real bad as well.
So this is what I meant by the fact that in these kind of games, optimization is not really important in the sense that you actually do not have the luxury of coming up with effective ships....

Quote from: Jorgen_CAB on October 31, 2014, 04:51:01 AM
I have experienced all these problems so many times in my multi-national games and most powers that build the cheapest and yet flexible fleet will usually get out on top. They generally rely on what technologies they have and how they implemented their doctrines to take full advantage of them. Many times just retooling of shipyards too much could hamper an empire to the brink of catastrophe when they can't get their new ships out in time for a conflict, this is especially detrimental with ship design that uses research intensive technology. The motto is that its better to have a few mediocre ships now than several perfect one when its all over.

Games where you play with a unified Earth where enemies usually are far in between and a long way from Earth is a very different beast and will impact your doctrines and ability to "optimize" using different criteria, this has nothing to do with role-play. Constraints and optimization will differ based on circumstances and setting of any campaign, and no one is more "right".

In my current campaign it would not be feasible to build large high powered engines on the basis that they simply are too costly to research and fuel, unless you opt to research a very small engine and then use numerous on a larger hull, thus decreasing the fuel efficiency even further. When a single large warship can drain 5% of the total fuel production in a year in just 30-60 days of flight you think twice about what kind of engine you put on those ships.

Once an empire spans over a greater distance and both population, industry and technology are more developed increasing the power on engines for larger ships will be more reasonable from an economical and military standpoint.

As I have only played "unified Earth" games, and in fact conventional start only games, I am not well versed in the different problems that arise in a multi-national games. I agree that it makes sense that it's better to have crappy ships than no ship at all. And that cheap ships also look attractive, and that retooling can be an extreme problem in a close war.

Still I do not think this impact my point too much regarding the fact that military ships need to be "fast", where fast means "fast enough to at least defend my assets from the enemy fleets" regardless of the real speed number. Let's say a multi-nation game on sol, and you have 4 colonies. Unless you have a lot of impregnable defense stations everywhere, your fleet is a crucial asset to defend your planets. If the enemy fleets travel twice your speed, by the time you arrive your colonies will be no more. Yes, fuel consumption is a problem, I understand that. But losing your colonies is more so.

And back to the main point of the thread, in such a game where you cannot even retool for fear of losing the war, you would not do what the opening post suggests to illustrate letsdance opinion. No offense, but you would not use 2 25% 50HS engines instead of one 35% 50HS engine, cause that would require you to use a much bigger shipyard and you cannot afford that most likely. You'd go with an acceptable compromise in fuel efficiency/speed, not just choose the engine with the best possible fuel efficiency.

So to conclude, I understand what you mean here, and I agree, but still speed is a critical issue in a mobile fleet and most often it simply cannot be compromised with, at least for a movable fleet. In other cases, it's simply more efficient to build "space bases". If you can afford them of course.

Quote from: Jorgen_CAB on October 31, 2014, 04:51:01 AM
When it comes to Tugs if you "abuse" the game mechanics you should never ever build engines on your ships at all but rather use tugs for everything, even using efficient tugs to drag around more inefficient tugs because commercial ships are "free" once you built them. Which in and of itself is abusing game mechanic in my view. In order to balance things I never allow tugs to use more than half its maximum speed as a means of rationalize that they can't be used on military ships. They can still be used to move military ships long distances for a fraction of the fuel cost though, but I would only allow that for moving ships from one maintenance facility to another using a skeleton crew on the warship.
I would certainly agree that putting engines on fuel harvesters, mining stations and gate builders is unnecessary and unreasonable from an economical standpoint in most circumstances. I think people in general do it so they don't have to go through the manual labour of shuttling the tugs around to tow stuff. It's not because people don't understand they are more economical to use.

To clarify, I most assuredly do not abuse tugs. I use them where they make sense. I do not tug my fleets in battle and then move the tugs away when the enemy come close, or anything like that. My tugs can and will move the following:
- Damaged ships
- Shipyards
- Terraformers, sorium harvesters, mining stations, gate buiders
- Defensive space bases (AKA immobile weapon platforms)

For defensive bases, they can ONLY be stationed either at jump points or at planets, but I do not allow them to be moved to enemy systems, unless the system is contested (I have a colony there). I also do not allow them to be towed without an escort fleet, because I maintain that a space station that is being towed is considered mothballed. That is, if I were to be attacked while moving a defensive base, it would NOT shoot back.

So, I do not think I abuse tugs. I can understand not wanting to bother with them, and so putting engines on everything. But it's not efficient and once again, in a truly close game (like a multi-empire starting system), you probably want to use every tool at your disposal, not just put engines on everything because it's not efficient.

P.S: I have this pet peeve of mine, that we can't build real space bases because from time to time they have to be overhauled. I think this is poorly implemented in aurora. I'm not saying it should be cost-free, but I'd really like to be able to build real, permanent starbases. For example, I would be fine with it if it was something like: You have to have, I don't know, 20% of the base spent in a special "deep space maintenance module", and that module uses maintenance supplies which you have to restock from time to time. I'd be fine with that, but no, from time to time you simply have too tow the bases back for overhaul... >_>

It really ruins the immersion. "Today, we christen the Evora starbase, a great testament to the advancements of our great nation. For ages to come, this mighty fortress will protect our borders against the incursion of the Arulean empire" ".... uhm no boss, actually we're due for maintenance back to earth in 8 years". Wait, what?
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: October 31, 2014, 04:51:01 AM »

I would agree with what you said and that "optimizing" ship design is a matter of doctrine rather than any specific parameter.

I might perhaps correct a few things...

Just because you "role-play" does not mean you can't "optimize" ship construction. It just means that under a certain set of new rules those "optimization" might look different. There are no "right" way to play the game and by definition there are no "right" way of optimizing ships in any particular way.

This is especially true to ship speed because there is always a balance between scouting ability, speed and fire-power. By concentrating more in one area you loose out on the other for the same industry/resource/time invested into it. So, by definition speed is no more important than any other part of a fleet. If you can manage high speed large capital ships with all the downside that entails such as higher research/fuel cost and more time to build ships etc and still keep up with fire-power and scouting ability it is all fine.

I have experienced all these problems so many times in my multi-national games and most powers that build the cheapest and yet flexible fleet will usually get out on top. They generally rely on what technologies they have and how they implemented their doctrines to take full advantage of them. Many times just retooling of shipyards too much could hamper an empire to the brink of catastrophe when they can't get their new ships out in time for a conflict, this is especially detrimental with ship design that uses research intensive technology. The motto is that its better to have a few mediocre ships now than several perfect one when its all over.

Games where you play with a unified Earth where enemies usually are far in between and a long way from Earth is a very different beast and will impact your doctrines and ability to "optimize" using different criteria, this has nothing to do with role-play. Constraints and optimization will differ based on circumstances and setting of any campaign, and no one is more "right".

In my current campaign it would not be feasible to build large high powered engines on the basis that they simply are too costly to research and fuel, unless you opt to research a very small engine and then use numerous on a larger hull, thus decreasing the fuel efficiency even further. When a single large warship can drain 5% of the total fuel production in a year in just 30-60 days of flight you think twice about what kind of engine you put on those ships.

Once an empire spans over a greater distance and both population, industry and technology are more developed increasing the power on engines for larger ships will be more reasonable from an economical and military standpoint.

When military budget have to pass through congress and compete against more "none destructive" policies through role-play you can't say you are not optimizing the designs, you are changing the rules of the setting in which the optimizing is occurring. There are simply no right "Mechanics" in the game but the ones you allow to be used, so we should be careful about saying that "you are playing it wrong" kind if statement.  ;)

When it comes to Tugs if you "abuse" the game mechanics you should never ever build engines on your ships at all but rather use tugs for everything, even using efficient tugs to drag around more inefficient tugs because commercial ships are "free" once you built them. Which in and of itself is abusing game mechanic in my view. In order to balance things I never allow tugs to use more than half its maximum speed as a means of rationalize that they can't be used on military ships. They can still be used to move military ships long distances for a fraction of the fuel cost though, but I would only allow that for moving ships from one maintenance facility to another using a skeleton crew on the warship.
I would certainly agree that putting engines on fuel harvesters, mining stations and gate builders is unnecessary and unreasonable from an economical standpoint in most circumstances. I think people in general do it so they don't have to go through the manual labour of shuttling the tugs around to tow stuff. It's not because people don't understand they are more economical to use.
Posted by: Zincat
« on: October 31, 2014, 03:23:45 AM »

I do agree that there is something that feels a bit wonky sometimes in the tonnage/power/fuel consumption equation. But let us approach this systematically by breaking down what common ship types you're going to build:

Military ships (warships):
Not a problem, usually military ship need to be FAST, and size is important. You will almost never want a slow military ship for a variety of reasons (range of engagement, actually catching up enemies, deploying the ships where you need them to be). To be honest, I often use engine multiplier higher than one. Speed is king, and let's not forget that as said before, increasing the shipyard size IS a problem, not to mention retooling times etc. Also, if you need more range you use a fuel transport.

The only issues when you do not want a fast warships are either when you're roleplaying (and then you cannot complain about mechanics, because you're purposefully building a NOT optimized ship), or when speed is not important at ALL. And in those cases you're much better off NOT putting engines on a ship. Just build an immovable weapon/fighter platform, and tug it where you need it with a civilian tug. This has a number of advantages, namely: You can build fuel efficient tugs and so save fuel, the tugs (and thus the speed) can be upgraded without the need of touching the military part of the ship, you have a LOT more space for weapons/ammo/systems, you spend less to build and research the military ships etc.

Military ships (other):
This includes ships that are not warships, but are classified as military ships. Grav surveys, scout/sensor ships, colliers and the like. All these ships needs either a decent speed, or a good speed (if they need to move with/behind the main war fleet). As such if they need to move with the fleet, or move fast for another reason (a fast scout to find enemies) they will have engines similar to a warship, and so with a high multiplier. If they don't, then I usually stick to 50% commercial engines to save fuel and have a good range while still having an acceptable speed. Even before ion engine tech, this is usually good enough range/speed for grav surveys and the like, because you generally scout ahead of time and such.

Civilian ships:
The only general thing is that you need to have the necessary range for your mission. So, at very low tech levels this might mean you change something in order to gain more range. But even just from ion engine, this is no longer a problem usually. Let's see case by case.

Tugs: one of my favorite ship designs. Tugs generally are 90% engine, 10% fuel space or something, so nothing wrong with the current model. Just build the most fuel efficient engine you can, and add as many as you need to obtain your ideal tug. No other considerations are required, you generally do not care how long it takes to move the tugged ship. If for some reason you need a fast tug instead, just make a tug with all 50% commercial engines on it, and you're done.

Terraformers, sorium harvesters, gate builders: if you're putting engines on these ships, you are doing it wrong. These ships needs to move rarely. Actually, terraformers and sorium harvesters need to move once every few years at most. You do not want to put engines on these. In order to put engines on these ships you need to increase their size immensely, which in turn means more cost, more fuel used/immobilized, bigger shipyard needed etc. Just build them as immobile, engine-less platforms. Cheap, faster to build. Apply tugs as needed to move them around :)

Cargo ships and colony ships: if you're doing it right, you will need FEW of these. And often, 0 colony ships alltogether. Unless you purposefully killed the civilian sector, what's the point? The civilians can and will move all of these for you at basically no costs. You may need a few, in order to move minerals or installations at critical times. In that case speed is generally important, so you stick to 50% commercial engines anyway

Geological survey ships, team transport ships: speed generally matters, so use 50% commercial engines. If it does not (example, far away system you want to geosurvey for the next decade expansion plan), then you use the most fuel efficient engine you can build. Let me point out in these cases I'd never add more engines to "optimize costs etc" as the opener posted. Why would I? If I do not plan to move into a system for at LEAST 10 year, it makes no difference to me if I take one or three years to  survey it. Oh and about the team transport ships.... You use them right? You're not "cheaters" that magically teleport teams around, right? :)

That covers the most common ships types I think. So after looking this through, I'd say that the current system, while not perfect, is not problematic  because you generally do not want to optimize fuel cost/speed by adding more engines and thus increasing size. Of course, if you do not like to use tugs/weapon platforms, or if you do not like to use civilian shipping lines for your needs, then it becomes more problematic. But in those cases you're not really "optimizing" the game anyway, so I do not see the problem there...
Posted by: Sagal
« on: October 30, 2014, 02:53:17 PM »

Try subsiding your company with 100k or so, you will see couple ships after that :)
Posted by: linkxsc
« on: October 05, 2014, 03:26:57 PM »

That info would be really nice on the wiki.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: October 05, 2014, 12:31:55 PM »

Quote from: linkxsc on October 05, 2014, 10:17:13 AM
^ Like I need to ship some to another colony myself? Or jsut setup teh civilian contract? Cause I've had a contract set for years after NT engines, with no change.

Also if you know, whats accomplished by "subsidizing" the shipping line?

Shipping lines use wealth to build ships, if you give them wealth they will simply build more ships. And as I said, in order to get a shipping line to build ships you need a colony with at least some infrastructure. After this they will build ships, once they build at least one colony ship (random which ship they build) they will start transporting population to this colony and things will take off from there.
Posted by: linkxsc
« on: October 05, 2014, 10:17:13 AM »

^ Like I need to ship some to another colony myself? Or jsut setup teh civilian contract? Cause I've had a contract set for years after NT engines, with no change.

Also if you know, whats accomplished by "subsidizing" the shipping line?
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: October 05, 2014, 06:18:46 AM »

Quote from: linkxsc on October 04, 2014, 11:50:10 PM
unless someone can tell me how to get them to start building ships without me already doing a ship of the same role, they seem to do nothing, until I build at least 1 cargo ship/colonyship

The critera is that you need to have Nuclear Thermal Engine research and send some infrastructure to a colony. You now only need to wait for your cvilians to spawn a colonyship and start colonizing. Obviously you need cryo transport researched as well. So you will need at least one cargo ship with a 5000t cargo hold at the minimum. Small freighters is also good for mineral transportation since mass drivers cant transport minerals through jump points. You might also want them to get minerals from asteroids where you don't care to place any mass-drivers.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: October 05, 2014, 05:52:38 AM »

This is also why speaking of optimization is so hard because it always comes down to WHAT it is you are trying to optimise. Large engines for example are not good for research optimization because they are very expensive to research for a small benefit in fuel economy. Larger engines instead of smaller engines with the same power setting also need more engineering sections for the same maintenance clock and more MSP to fix maintenance problems and battle damage in relation. That is why it's never crystal clear one option is better that the other, unless the only optimization criteria you are interested in are fuel economy.

If you, for example, are going to build... as you suggested... one 2x 50HS engine for a corvette at 4000t and then another say a 1x 50HS engine for your 10000t ships, perhaps a 1x 30HS for your frigates to optimise fuel economy you spend 11000RP at Ion engine tech, while you could reduce that to two engine types with say one small powerful 10HS and one slightly bigger say 25HS and only use about 2700RP. You loose some fuel efficiency and that is about it.

Personally I try to strike a balance on the cost of RP research, fuel economy, ship performance and production capacity. Usually this mean that I keep a two or three different 1HS engines, perhaps one or two 10-15HS engines with different power/stealth settings and then a bigger less powerful engine for ships in the 10000t+ region. If I have any really big ships I might go with a HS50 engine, but only if research is plenty enough and I'm not behind in technology from other factions.
I practically use the same logic for all types of ship components from weapons, sensors, fire-controls etc...

Again, I don't mean either choice is better... but I really think that all discussion need to bring forth all the benefit AND drawbacks of each of these optimization strategies, not just present them as the "only" true option for perfect performance.  ;)

I also actually agree with letsdance overall mentality that low powered engines is a good choice for ship engines based on them having a huge industrial, research and logistical advantage over the more expensive engines. As long as you understand the drawbacks and then learn how you might overcome them to hopefully make you stronger than the opponent is important.
Posted by: linkxsc
« on: October 04, 2014, 11:50:10 PM »

Well its 1 thing I've learned from years of 4Xs, especially the good ole "Space Empires 3" (too bad it don't run on modern computers)
theres no such thing as the perfect ship. Just the 1 thats good for this situation.
Though it really only seems to matter in the 5000-10000t range. Above 10kt, you're better off just going with 50HS engines, and cranking the power factor to get faster ships. And sub 5000t... stuff gets a little crazy because of size limitations. (though my 3500-4000t corvettes run off of a 1.5x-2x 50HS engine, 25HTK keeps them flying well after a couple good hits) And cause most smaller ships need to squeeze as much power out of their engineHS/TotalHS as they can.
Of course this whole thread is about efficiency... But I can't warrant just throwing more and more engines onto my freighters. Even though its cheap to expand your shipyard, after the first couple freighters are out, and colony ship to get the civilian contractors rolling (unless someone can tell me how to get them to start building ships without me already doing a ship of the same role, they seem to do nothing, until I build at least 1 cargo ship/colonyship)
After that, the only civilian ships that get turned out are geosurvey ships (kept as small as possible, and often end up being military designs due to passive sensors/CIWS, also often identical to my gravsurvey ships) And mining ships... which are also often military designs, and fuel transports... which are also milspec... and. Yeah I usually don't bother building more than 2 Civilian Shipyards. Only reason I have 6 of them total right now is because I stole 4 of them from NPRs with tugs. After the first handful of freighters and such I build, I either build all my stuff as a milspec design, or let the civilian shipping handle it. And expanding military shipyards is expensive and SLOW.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: October 04, 2014, 09:19:28 PM »

Yes... the thing I "argued" is that one type is better for one thing and the other in something else.

Why I felt letsdance argued over "pointless" details was because it seemed to be contest and that my example could be compared in an isolated very restricted such contest without considering that Type A could as well have used more launchers per BP so the very argument would be reversed for the exact same reason type B would be "better". You could essentially choose between deeper magazines or more launchers.

The thing is that there are no "perfect" ship configuration for all types of ships, no single solutions for all the different mission types. If you want a short range fast ship you build a high powered engine that is fuel hungry, if you want a longer ranged ship you use a more fuel efficient engine, this is quite logical and valid points. But this is only practically true if you can afford to research all the techs needed for all the different ships that you use. It is practically impossible to optimise all components on all your ships without some compromises at some point. Unless you have unlimited time to research and no real opposition to speak off.
Posted by: linkxsc
« on: October 04, 2014, 05:09:06 PM »

So... 10% more ships... that fire 20% fewer missiles...

Seems like a losing situation in the long run when massing the 2, although, if theyre gonna be heading on a long range patrol, version B might be a tad better for the efficiency. Against a strong amm defense, type a pulls ahead simply due to 3 extra volleys. While the "10%" more type b would pull ahead in a heavy gun pd setup.
Posted by: letsdance
« on: October 04, 2014, 02:21:51 PM »

Quote from: Jorgen_CAB on September 28, 2014, 03:55:01 PM
Why do you keep arguing over pointless details?
*lol* YOU started arguing this detail.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: September 28, 2014, 03:55:01 PM »

Quote from: letsdance on September 28, 2014, 02:38:23 PM
any type of point defense will move the equation to my favor, because 10 % more ships means exactly the same number and volleys of missiles, and then another 10 % on top of that.

Why do you keep arguing over pointless details?

If you have more tonnage to add stuff per BP you just have, no point in arguing what it is, however you like to distribute it does not matter. You can fit more launchers on the Type-A versus Type-B if you feel that is important. In this particular instance you probably could have mounted two more launchers on Type-A and still have a few more missiles on board.

Not that you are right about volume of fire... higher volley volume is not always better, sometimes PD is so strong that you have to just out shoot it with total volume, so it does not matter. Unless you know for sure how big volleys you need it is always a gamble.


Quote from: letsdance on September 28, 2014, 02:38:23 PM
yes and i would prefer if this advantage would be more significant. the examples we used so far had a mission range of 10-15b km. that's not very short, but also not long (just enough to jump out of the system and maybe move around a bit, then you have to go refuelling) and i never saw a real benefit when using a higher power engine.

it would make more sense if you needed a higher power engine to achieve a higher speed with your ship. even when you want a long mission range.

Most fleets will obviously have a support fleet trail it on missions with tankers, colliers and supply ships. You only put enough fuel to keep your support ships at a safe distance from the fighting. In my experience I rarely need more than 10-15b km on a ship for actual combat manoeuvres. On some ships even less than that. In the beginning I keep my ship ranges even shorter and as my fuel technology progress I usually add some range even though I reduce the total fuel carried. Though, most of my campaigns have so many different constraints that it is nigh impossible to build optimised ships.

Ships designed for scouting is an entirely different matter, here you will need more fuel and so a better engine design would be desired. Although, in reality, you are limited in how many engine designs you can have and sometimes you have to have an engine that can do both, so you end up with an engine doing nothing well.

If you cranked up the fuel technology to *0.5 and at the same time reduced the range to 10-12 billion km the Type-A would get much more tonnage to play with mission type stuff. If you then put in a say *1.25 powered engine you will get even more. Even if the ship get more expensive overall you pay less cost per ton of mission critical tonnage. You will get a very fuel hungry ship, but if your empire have the fuel reserves when you need it it is fine to do so.

If you want to build a larger long range cruiser, meant to cruise alone and at long ranges. You perhaps want it to have a range of 35 billion km but you are constrained at 25000t. You might want to design an engine that let you have a decent speed and fuel economy, but you also must have room to put in all the mission critical stuff that you need. Designing such a ship will probably be a challenge since you might need to decide on something you will have to cut back on, such as speed, range or mission tonnage. You might even decide that cost is not important, utility trump cost in this instance. You also might be constrained in how much research you can divert to designing components that you don't have, such as a new engine.
All these are real consideration during play role-play or no role-play... the only time there are no real limits is if there are no threats and you have all the time in the world to do as you please. But then you really don't need to build that many warship anyway, so why bother. ;)

So... while I agree that there are some optimised designs that you can build with range being a major factor in engine design it might not always be practical. If you have an 8000t destroyer that has a range of 9 billion km who uses a standard *1 engine and you like to build an 8000t scout ship with a range of 40b km you might not have the time or wish to develop a new engine. You just use the one you have and give the ship an unreasonable amount of fuel. It is a suboptimal build but a trade-off you sometimes have to do.

I'm NOT saying one strategy is better than the other, as before, I'm just saying there are different strategic advantages for different objectives in the game.