Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 01, 2008, 07:43:31 AM
Quote from: "Brian"
How about improved magazines. Each level gives an extra 50 spaces of missles and requires the matching improvement in cargo handling technology. Make the reasearch cost be double the cost of the cargo handling and it is not something that will be reasearched execpt by races using missles a lot. Only give 10 spaces for small magazines as there is not as much room to work with to get the better efficiencies.
You may have opened a can of worms :)
I am sure I looked at this in the past because I remember checking out the size of modern launchers vs modern missiles but unfortunately that is one of the posts we lost after the problem with the hosting site.
One option is to make magazines match the size of missiles, which means reducing the capacity of existing magazines to 30, or perhaps creating a 10 HS magazine with a capacity of 100. Obviously this would have a massive impact on the capability of missile ships. The Oceanian Tribal class DDG shown below would require 60 HS of magazine capacity instead of 9 HS, or more realistically would have to reduce the number of launchers to probably three instead of six and have 1/3rd the magazine space, which would make the ship 1 HS smaller. That would make missile ships very weak unless missiles were made much more effective, such as being faster, harder to hit, having larger warheads or a combination of those. However, that would then also make launch rails and smaller, slow-firing missile launchers much more effective. Fighters and FACs would have a considerably greater punch. All of that would make Aurora a very different game in terms of missile combat. Not necessarily worse but very different. Rather than a Honor Harrington type situation it would be far more like modern naval combat, or perhaps even the modern Battlestar Galactica, where a single missile hit could be devastating. Given probable future warhead yields that might not be unrealistic.
Code: [Select]
Tribal class Destroyer 5850 tons 627 Crew 760 BP TCS 117 TH 360 EM 420
3076 km/s Armour 1 Shields 14-300 Sensors 10/0/0/0 Damage Control 0-0 PPV 24
Magazine 600 Replacement Parts 5
Nuclear Pulse Engine E7 (9) Power 40 Efficiency 0.70 Signature 40 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 70,000 Litres Range 73.8 billion km (277 days at full power)
Beta R300/10.5 Shields (9) Total Fuel Cost 95 Litres per day
Mk I Guided Missile Launch System (6) Missile Size 4 Rate of Fire 40
M900 Missile Fire Control (1) Range: 900k km
RGM-1 Katana (114) Speed: 10,000 km/s Endurance: 75 secs Range: 750k km Warhead: 3 Size: 4
RGM-2 Halberd (36) Speed: 14,000 km/s Endurance: 53 secs Range: 742k km Warhead: 2 Size: 4
SPS-32/16 Active Sensor (1) GPS 320 Range 3.2m km Resolution 16
ST-2 Thermal Sensor (1) Sensitivity 10 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 10m kmOption Two is to make missiles much smaller. Perhaps 1 point of missile size = 1/100th a HS. That works out well for magazine space, with a 3HS magazine equal to 300 points of magazine space. 200 points then looks very reasonable for a basic magazine with some later tech upping that toward the 300 limit. It also gives missile mass as 1 ton for a size 2 missile and 5 tons for a size 10 missile, which again looks reasonable. However, that gives two new problems. Firstly a missile launcher is now 100x larger than the missile, the smallest slow-reload launcher would be 25x and even a launch rail is 15x larger. I seem to recall from my earlier look at this that the 100x larger launcher is not necessarily unrealistic given modern equivalents but the launch rail would likely be smaller, which itself makes missile ships more effective.
A halfway house possibility here is to make one point of missile size = 1/50th HS, or one ton per point. Magazines would be 5 HS instead of 3HS, (making them equivalent to 250 points of missiles) and retaining their 200 point storage. This makes launchers 50x times larger, slow-reload 12x larger and Launch rails 7x larger. Still high but on the edge of believable. This is probably a reasonable compromise between playability and realism, especially if I dropped launch rails to 10% or 5x missile size.
Which brings me to the second problem for reduced missile size. Sensors currently detect missiles at the point of missile size = 1/10th HS level. If that is reduced to 1/50th or 1/100th, missiles go from difficult to detect to almost impossible. Given the active current sensor model, sensors would have to be huge to be able to acquire missiles at a range where they could be engaged before striking their target.
There are a few ways around this that I can think of. One is to allow ships to shoot at thermal contacts, instead of just active. I could easily give missiles a much higher thermal strength than their cross-section due to the high power of missile drives. Another alternative is to give active sensors an ability to zero in on thermal contacts at a greater range than they would detect a new contact. Finally a special type of active sensor designed to pick out small contacts that wouldn't work on large contacts above a certain size.
A third option is to pretend Brian didn't post
or at least to accept the inconsistency but internal consistency is a major design driver for me with Aurora. I am very open to other options and suggestions in this area.
Steve
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 01, 2008, 10:10:44 AM
Launcher Size would be reasonable with a standard launcher being 20x missile size, the smallest slow-reload launcher would be 5x missile size and a Launch Rail would be 3x missile size, which considering it is actually a box launcher rather than a rail is also reasonable,
Sensors as they stand would be reduced in effectiveness by half but I think I would introduce some type of specialised sensor for detecting smaller objects such as missiles and perhaps fighters.
Which still leaves the fact that ships could only store one fourth as many missiles as before. This means less sustained fire or fewer launchers. Therefore missiles need to be much more effective to account for the fact that less of them will be available. I considered making them much faster but that has a wide range of implications. Yes they would be harder to hit but they would also be longer ranged and cover far more ground in a 5 second increment, making area point defence far less useful and sensors even more ineffectivess. There is also the fact that missile combat works fairly well at the moment in terms of point defence. Therefore I think the solution would simply be larger warheads so that the fewer missiles that get through have a similar impact as before. At the moment I am thinking 2.5x or 3x the current warhead size. Although this may appear to make fighters more effective, its not as much of a change as it might seem. Fighters are much larger in v2.6 than v2.5 anyway so a carrier strikegroup would probably have similar firepower. A carrier would also need much more magazine space so the strikegroup would be reduced in size anyway.
This is still just thinking out loud at the moment though,
Steve
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 01, 2008, 12:24:21 PM
Steve
Post by: Haegan2005 on March 01, 2008, 03:17:01 PM
Quote
However, magazines are 3HS so they should only be able to hold 3x10 = 30 points of missiles and they actually hold 200! So that presents a whole series of problems
Post by: sloanjh on March 01, 2008, 05:48:07 PM
Quote from: "Haegan2005"
Well, yes and no. While I am not a naval ship builder.... It is my understanding that a magazine weight is not necessarily related to the number of missiles it can hold. Think of it as a rather specialized cargo hold. Furthermore, a systems weight does not necessarily relate to its size as some amount of volume it it will be empty in order to provide pathways for repair and standard maintenance. A hanger space not only holds its fighters, but missile carts, repair bays, spare parts, etc. A magazine has its missiles packed in like sardines.QuoteHowever, magazines are 3HS so they should only be able to hold 3x10 = 30 points of missiles and they actually hold 200! So that presents a whole series of problems
Are HS a unit of mass or volume (displacement)? I think this gets blurred in a lot of ship-design games. If mass, then a ship with empty magazines (or fuel tanks) should be quicker than when full.
For ships this might not be a big deal (since the overall tonnage is probably a lot greater than the missiles'), but for fighters or GB with external rails the missiles might account a significant fraction of the mass (or volume - they're external). Do you (Steve) want to make a "loaded" fighter slower than a "clean" one? This also brings up the question of external (drop) tanks that can be fitted to launch rails. Or sensor pods. Or gun pods. And yes, I admit it, I'm cheating off of modern fighters - LOTS of stuff can be hung off of a hard-point.
John
Post by: Haegan2005 on March 01, 2008, 06:27:48 PM
Quote
Are HS a unit of mass or volume (displacement)? I think this gets blurred in a lot of ship-design games.
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 02, 2008, 05:21:09 AM
Quote from: "Haegan2005"
QuoteHowever, magazines are 3HS so they should only be able to hold 3x10 = 30 points of missiles and they actually hold 200! So that presents a whole series of problemsWell, yes and no. While I am not a naval ship builder.... It is my understanding that a magazine weight is not necessarily related to the number of missiles it can hold. Think of it as a rather specialized cargo hold. Furthermore, a systems weight does not necessarily relate to its size as some amount of volume it it will be empty in order to provide pathways for repair and standard maintenance. A hanger space not only holds its fighters, but missile carts, repair bays, spare parts, etc. A magazine has its missiles packed in like sardines.
For simplicity, Mass and Size are equal in Aurora. I am basing the size of missiles on the cross-section as detected by active sensors, which is currently 0.1 HS per point of missile size. A magazine is 3 HS, which is thirty times as large as a Size 1 missile so magazines should be able to hold 30 points of missiles, based on current sizes.
Steve
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 02, 2008, 05:31:16 AM
Quote from: "sloanjh"
Are HS a unit of mass or volume (displacement)? I think this gets blurred in a lot of ship-design games. If mass, then a ship with empty magazines (or fuel tanks) should be quicker than when full.Mass and displacement are equal in Aurora. It just makes things easier from both a mechanics and a visualization perspective. I considered having ships gain speed without missiles, fuel or cargo but it was a lot of work to keep changing the speed every increment and it wouldn't make that much difference except for cargo ships.
Quote from: "sloanjh"
For ships this might not be a big deal (since the overall tonnage is probably a lot greater than the missiles'), but for fighters or GB with external rails the missiles might account a significant fraction of the mass (or volume - they're external). Do you (Steve) want to make a "loaded" fighter slower than a "clean" one? This also brings up the question of external (drop) tanks that can be fitted to launch rails. Or sensor pods. Or gun pods. And yes, I admit it, I'm cheating off of modern fighters - LOTS of stuff can be hung off of a hard-point.
Its a good point about fighter mass but if I change the rules for fighters I would have to do the same for other ships to maintain consistency. Its also lot easier for players if they know what speed a ship will travel without having to worry about cargo, etc. I think I wrote some technobabble about this a while ago explaining how travelling while phasing into trans-newtonian space (the reason for non-newtonian movement mechanics) is based on displacement of trans-newtonian space rather than mass.
I think I might have to change the name of Launch Rails to Box Launchers. They are enclosed launch tubes rather than a hardpoint on an F-15.
Steve
Post by: Haegan2005 on March 02, 2008, 09:04:13 AM
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
Quote from: "Haegan2005"For simplicity, Mass and Size are equal in Aurora. I am basing the size of missiles on the cross-section as detected by active sensors, which is currently 0.1 HS per point of missile size. A magazine is 3 HS, which is thirty times as large as a Size 1 missile so magazines should be able to hold 30 points of missiles, based on current sizes.QuoteHowever, magazines are 3HS so they should only be able to hold 3x10 = 30 points of missiles and they actually hold 200! So that presents a whole series of problemsWell, yes and no. While I am not a naval ship builder.... It is my understanding that a magazine weight is not necessarily related to the number of missiles it can hold. Think of it as a rather specialized cargo hold. Furthermore, a systems weight does not necessarily relate to its size as some amount of volume it it will be empty in order to provide pathways for repair and standard maintenance. A hanger space not only holds its fighters, but missile carts, repair bays, spare parts, etc. A magazine has its missiles packed in like sardines.
Steve
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 02, 2008, 10:39:19 AM
Quote from: "Haegan2005"
Does the missile have a drive field and if so, could it be the drive field the sensors are hitting? Going this route would make the actual missile smaller, but allow for the sensors to detect it using the current rule set.
There are no drive fields in Aurora. That's a Starfire physics invention I think. However, the change to active sensors means that anything less than 1 HS is detected as 1 HS so smaller missiles are not a problem in terms of detection.
Steve
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 02, 2008, 12:06:28 PM
Lets assume instead that missile engines are 5x power and 10,000x fuel use. That gives the missile an engine power of 2.5, a speed of 12,500 km/s and an endurance of 0.125 days (3 hours) and a range of 135 million kilometers.
Compared to the current range of less than one million kilometers that seems completely ridiculous. However, I then started thinking about comparisons to modern warfare. Lets look at a Tomahawk land-attack missile. It has an endurance of about 3 hours and a range of 2500 km. Same endurance but obviously a much shorter range. However, that range is based on global warfare, not system-wide. The globe is about 40,000 kilometers in circumference whereas the Sol system out to the furthest possible jump points is about six billion kilometers, a difference in scale of 150,000x. If you scale up the Tomahawk's range by 150,000x you get 375 million kilometers. Suddenly the 135m km range missile isn't looking so ridiculous. The AGM-86 air-launched cruise missile has similar capabilities to the Tomahawk while ICBMs have global range
So now that got me thinking why do Aurora missiles have such short range and is it reasonable? The conclusion I came to is that Aurora missiles have ranges not that much greater than beam weapons because I have been playing Starfire for fifteen years and that is how capital missiles work. When I started work on missile design I fell back on familiarity rather than really thinking about how missile warfare in deep space would work. The reality is that if we could build space craft with the capabilities of those in Aurora we probably would be building missiles with endurances measured in hours and ranges in tens of millions of kilometers. If we wanted to shoot at Mars, we could probably do it now although the speeds involved are obviously a lot lower. Now I have really started to think it through, the very short ranges of missiles don't seem realistic at all.
Which then brings me to another interesting thought. Modern warfare is often more about detection than anything else. Once you locate a target, you usually have weapons with sufficient range to attack it. Finding it in the first place and then tracking it with sufficient accuracy to guide a missile is the hard part. Huge weapon ranges don't really do you any good unless you can see the target.
So letting my imagination go for a moment, what if I changed Aurora to that type of model. Its now Harpoon instead of Honor Harrington. Backfires against Carrier Groups and long range missile exchanges between surface action groups. Stealth and scouting becomes a big factor. Missile fire control would become an expensive option to add to active sensors instead of a separate short range system. Given the possible size changes mentioned earlier in this thread, missiles would become larger in terms of magazine space, more expensive and much longer ranged. I would have to add some type of active terminal guidance as a serious option as well as handing off fire control between ships.
In this paradigm, resupply of missiles would become very important because you would only be able to carry 1/4th as many. I imagine beam weapons, torpedoes etc would become the weapon of choice for defending jump points or for long deployments with little support. They would become much more like beam weapons in Honor Harrington where ships clashed at close range. Trying to get stealthy beam ships into close range of missile ships would become a significant tactic, as would running down missile ships that had fired off their limited ordance. It may be that most ships carried a few missiles in Launch Rails in addition to their regular armament. Perhaps I could also allow Launch Rails to be reloaded by ships when they are in orbit of a population with adequate maintenance facilities.
Lots of possibilities but I thought I would await the probably horrified response to this post before going any further
Steve
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 02, 2008, 12:45:33 PM
Also there is nothing to stop players designing a recon drone on a missile body, using a larger sensor instead of a warhead. This could be fired at the same time to provide final guidance (by highlighting targets for the other missiles) or in a pure recon mode to find out what lay ahead.
Steve
Post by: Shinanygnz on March 02, 2008, 01:10:06 PM
I think you're right on missile ranges. For realism they should be a lot longer.
Maybe you should be tinkering with ROF too?
Falling back on modern naval tech for analogy, early Tico cruisers had two launchers and about 90 standard missiles. Later ones have the VLS systems, with approx the same number of missiles. Recently, a new Sea Sparrow version has been developed and can be "four-packed" into a Mk41 VLS cell instead of a Tomahawk/Harpoon/Standard (nicely matches your existing multi-warhead system). The Soviets tended to have a bunch of big one shot box launchers for anti-shipping strikes.
So, how about ships with "box launchers" with big anti-shipping/planet missiles, requiring a collier or some similar facility and "downtime" to reload. Missile magazines then are usually linked to smaller, fast firing anti-missile systems, but you could have them fire less capable (i.e. smaller) anti-ship missiles too if you want to give up the mag space.
To add a "realism" worm, what's to stop me designing a fighter or gunboat sized missile (with shields, armour and a BIG warhead) and carrying it around in a parasite bay?
Stephen
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 02, 2008, 03:10:00 PM
Quote from: "Shinanygnz"
Oh dear me, what a pickle.Yes, the more I think about it the more the current missile ranges don't make sense compared to the rest of the game.
I think you're right on missile ranges. For realism they should be a lot longer.
Quote
Maybe you should be tinkering with ROF too?All the above should be taken care of by the existing missile rules. You can create box launchers of any size at 1/6th normal launcher size in v2.6. They can only be reloaded inside a hangar but I could extend that to either hangars or maintenance facilities equal to ship size or less. There are also slow reload launchers already in v2.5 down to 1/4 normal size that take a long time to reload.
Falling back on modern naval tech for analogy, early Tico cruisers had two launchers and about 90 standard missiles. Later ones have the VLS systems, with approx the same number of missiles. Recently, a new Sea Sparrow version has been developed and can be "four-packed" into a Mk41 VLS cell instead of a Tomahawk/Harpoon/Standard (nicely matches your existing multi-warhead system). The Soviets tended to have a bunch of big one shot box launchers for anti-shipping strikes.
So, how about ships with "box launchers" with big anti-shipping/planet missiles, requiring a collier or some similar facility and "downtime" to reload. Missile magazines then are usually linked to smaller, fast firing anti-missile systems, but you could have them fire less capable (i.e. smaller) anti-ship missiles too if you want to give up the mag space.
Quote
To add a "realism" worm, what's to stop me designing a fighter or gunboat sized missile (with shields, armour and a BIG warhead) and carrying it around in a parasite bay?
Realism-wise probably not much. Within the game mechanics missiles have a maximum size of 24, or 1.08 hull spaces. I am tempted to up that a little to account for serious planet-busters or recon drones.
Steve
Post by: Randy on March 03, 2008, 10:23:25 AM
If you have the crew, and the reloads, why not allow reloads in space?
I'd add in the restriction that you can't be moving while reloading (or else risk losing some of your precious deck crews...).
Then the single large volley ship design becomes viable. It just takes a couple days to reload. Instead of a couple weeks/months - if it has to return to base.
Just a thought - if you don't allow some form of mobile reloading of box launchers you put a very huge advantage to the defender in combat. As if there already isn't a big one with the planet combat
Adding in reloading shifts the balance back a bit.
Post by: Shinanygnz on March 03, 2008, 01:47:08 PM
limited number of large, long range anti-shipping missiles
more, shorter ranged anti-missile/air missiles
some carry less capable (as in shorter ranged, smaller warhead) anti-ship missiles
Assuming no lucky magazine hits, how many Harpoons to kill a Tico, Kirov or Nimitz? How many SS-N-19 Shipwrecks?
For reference a quick Google turned up this on Kirov:
The ship is armed with the Granit (Nato designation SS-N-19 Shipwreck) long-range anti-ship missile system. Twenty Granit missiles are installed under the upper deck...
An S-300F Air Defence Missile Complex is installed on the ship, with twelve launchers and 96 vertical launch air defence missiles. The Osa-MA Air Defence Missile System is supplied by the Znamya Truda Plant based at Saratov. The ship has two double launchers and 40 missiles.
If you use the typical modern attack submarine (5 - 7kt displacement) as an example instead of a ship, 20 - 30 torpedoes or missiles and 4 - 6 launchers = not a lot of salvoes.
The way I see it you are pretty much headed for this kind of scenario now. A small number of big, nasty and/or long range missiles that are slow to reload, or more smaller ones. I don't see this as a problem myself, but it depends what kind of combat battlespace you're wanting for your game. Harpoon in space, 2300AD Star Cruiser (aka hide and seek with bazookas) or something else.
Btw, in the HH books, in OBS it was noted that a CL's anti-ship missile was 70 tons.
Hope I'm making sense.
Stephen
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 03, 2008, 03:10:20 PM
Quote from: "Shinanygnz"
What I was getting at was with the modern naval analogy was the following:
limited number of large, long range anti-shipping missiles
more, shorter ranged anti-missile/air missiles
some carry less capable (as in shorter ranged, smaller warhead) anti-ship missiles
Assuming no lucky magazine hits, how many Harpoons to kill a Tico, Kirov or Nimitz? How many SS-N-19 Shipwrecks?
For reference a quick Google turned up this on Kirov:
The ship is armed with the Granit (Nato designation SS-N-19 Shipwreck) long-range anti-ship missile system. Twenty Granit missiles are installed under the upper deck...
An S-300F Air Defence Missile Complex is installed on the ship, with twelve launchers and 96 vertical launch air defence missiles. The Osa-MA Air Defence Missile System is supplied by the Znamya Truda Plant based at Saratov. The ship has two double launchers and 40 missiles.
If you use the typical modern attack submarine (5 - 7kt displacement) as an example instead of a ship, 20 - 30 torpedoes or missiles and 4 - 6 launchers = not a lot of salvoes.
The way I see it you are pretty much headed for this kind of scenario now. A small number of big, nasty and/or long range missiles that are slow to reload, or more smaller ones. I don't see this as a problem myself, but it depends what kind of combat battlespace you're wanting for your game. Harpoon in space, 2300AD Star Cruiser (aka hide and seek with bazookas) or something else.
Btw, in the HH books, in OBS it was noted that a CL's anti-ship missile was 70 tons. Hope I'm making sense.
Yes, you are. I think it is heading exactly this way too. The funny thing is that the more internally consistent and 'realistic' I try to make the game, the more it resembles modern naval warfare.
I have made the decision to change to missiles using 5x engine power (currently 4x) and 10,000x fuel use, double the warhead strength and use a missile size of 20 MSP (missile size points) per HS. This is about half the size that missiles were for detection purposes in v2.5 but much larger than missiles were treated for magazine storage. This gives a standard 3HS magazine a capacity of 50 magazine points, rather than the previous 200. I'll make a post in the Mechanics forum with the full details but it has an impact on a few other areas, such as missile fire control and targeting. As you mentioned above, I do think the trend will likely be toward Box launchers for large anti-ship missiles with reloadable launchers for smaller missiles.
Sensors are going to become very important in this model and a lot of "missile combat" will likely be the manevering to set up a long range missile shot. I will need to seriously look at stealth as well.
Steve
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 03, 2008, 03:15:26 PM
Quote from: "Randy"
These changes to missiles and magazines acutually fit in well with the DCQ concept for reloading.
If you have the crew, and the reloads, why not allow reloads in space?
I'd add in the restriction that you can't be moving while reloading (or else risk losing some of your precious deck crews...).
Then the single large volley ship design becomes viable. It just takes a couple days to reload. Instead of a couple weeks/months - if it has to return to base.
Just a thought - if you don't allow some form of mobile reloading of box launchers you put a very huge advantage to the defender in combat. As if there already isn't a big one with the planet combat
Adding in reloading shifts the balance back a bit.
With the other changes I am going to make I do agree that Box Launchers are likely to become more common and that some type of reloading in space is likely to be required. I will certainly be adding the ability to reload box launchers at a planet with sufficient maintenance facilities. I am still not convinced about deck crews effectively going EVA to reload the launch tubes, although I agree it might be possible if, as you suggest, the ship remains stationary for a couple of days. What I may add though is some type of replenishment module that allows one ship to reload the Box Launchers of a second without the need for a hangar deck.
Steve
Post by: Father Tim on March 03, 2008, 04:26:29 PM
Quote from: "Shinanygnz"
Btw, in the HH books, in OBS it was noted that a CL's anti-ship missile was 70 tons.
Stephen
Aye, but the CL itelf was 60,000 tons, creeping up to ninety to a hundred thousand tons as the war progressed. Or in Aurora terms, 300 HS. Superdreadnoughts are five and a half to six million tons (five million tons equals 100,000 HS).
Post by: simon on January 14, 2009, 10:29:36 AM
but ineffective against other targets types iam thinkin maybe calling laser-ring warheads or you could summon the naming committe to give it a nice sounding name also thinkin about a emp pulse warhead bomb pumped or whatever something in the line of the microwave weapon which ihope can be turret mounted in later versions. If you can come up with other branches in the missile warhead linage tree it would be spice to the tounge.
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 15, 2009, 11:31:03 AM
Quote from: "simon"
Can we getmore speacialized warheads like the expanding rod warheads used in air defense missilesI'll give it some thought. I would be wary of mounting the microwave weapon as a warhead because of its considerable effectiveness. Short-range is the balancing factor. Although perhaps a less effective version that only worked 25% of the time, or gave affected systems a much higher resistance chance, might be a possibility. I will also be looking at electronic warfare in a lot more depth at some point to make it a more interesting area and I will include missile-related EW in that.
Steve
Post by: simon on January 15, 2009, 12:55:20 PM
What do you think about jamming technology ?
should it go after active sensors or fire control systems and also do you think decoys should be inthe mix so that as technolgy improves they can mimic launch platforms emission signals better and for longer periods. I imagine some think you can stash in the magazine so that it supplies are exhaustable. You could fix this in perhaps as technology improves. Like to hear what you think about this ingredients
Post by: simon on February 18, 2009, 12:16:57 PM
.
Post by: Father Tim on February 18, 2009, 11:17:11 PM
Post by: simon on February 19, 2009, 04:57:53 AM
Post by: schroeam on February 19, 2009, 03:43:20 PM
Adam.
Post by: SteveAlt on February 19, 2009, 06:31:09 PM
Quote from: "adradjool"
What about the good old fashioned Neutron Bomb... Kill off everyone, but the factories, research labs, mines, etc. are all saved, ready for use.That is effectively the enhanced radiation warhead. The Neutron Bomb was sort of a nickname for what was officially referred to as the Enhanced Radiation Weapon.
Steve
Post by: SteveAlt on February 19, 2009, 06:48:51 PM
Quote from: "simon"
Aurora, aurora, aurora brings out that little Stalin. It got me wondering, what do you guys think of bio-chem warfare weapons possibly missiles so you can dust your opponents ideal world with area denial weapons? I imagine plague simulation with reverse population growth and infrastructure forming the bedrock past which declines cannot happen because civilian populations will be protected. Can this be used to tip missiles as a warhead whose effectiveness can be upgraded through research in chem-bio warfare so that the hotter the agent the less you need to waste planet and the harder the clean upI have considered this in the past but I don't want to make it a weapon that could easily wipe out a population so you can just move in and take over. To create biological and chemical weapons you would need knowledge of the biology of the targeted species. This could be gained through the study of conquered populations or POWS. I guess you would get a research project for each alien race for which you have prisoners, along the lines of those in the UFO series of games. You would also need other tech lines to provide general bio weapon knowledge in the first place and eventually you would create a bio weapon in the same way as developing a new missile design. Researching the bio weapon would require the use of research facilities and there would be a small chance of contamination so somewhere out of the way would be a good idea. If you dust a planet with a bio agent that did eventually kill the population, then it would likely hang around for a long time and possibly mutate to affect other species, including your own
Bio agents would have a contagion rating, which would determine how quickly they spread, an incubation period, which would determine how long before the disease presented symptoms and a lethality. Ships movings between affected populations would have a chance to spread the disease. This would eventually appear on the ship itself based on the incubation period but perhaps not before it infected a second world. I guess there would also have to be medical facilities to fight any plagues and develop an antidote or vaccine. Plagues could also mutate in terms of their lethality, incubation and contagion rating, as well as which species they may affect. Perhaps plagues could also be present at the sites of ancient ruins. It is a fascinating area and I would like to add soemthing along these lines at some point. It wouldn't be in version 4.0 though.
Steve
Post by: simon on March 02, 2009, 07:59:37 AM
Post by: SteveAlt on March 03, 2009, 07:41:20 PM
Quote from: "simon"
When i am lose i go down to Dr Coops Australia air power(Google me) site where he frets about moskits and Chinese flankers, what caught my eye was his representation media of comparative BVR missile ranges which makes range differentials easy to understand. It would definitely look nice on aurora and calibrating missiles and their fire control systems would be easier to understand. I imagine side by side graphical representation of missiles and fire controls which whose colors changes as accuracy drops, designing it to also include speed/kill probability could be added if possible. :twisted:I have had a look at the page and it does make interesting reading. I won't have time to do anything for this version but something along those lines would look very good. I will add it to my list of future mods.
Steve
Post by: simon on March 17, 2009, 12:14:04 PM
http://www.ausairpower.net/AAM-Animated-Chart-8-16.swf (http://www.ausairpower.net/AAM-Animated-Chart-8-16.swf)
Post by: Sotak246 on March 17, 2009, 07:23:32 PM
Post by: simon on March 20, 2009, 11:46:27 AM
Quote from: "Sotak246"
I like that chart, nice find.8) To get the juices flowing if a missile threat library can be added so that you can compare yours and his, which is longer, faster and gives bang for the back at a glance i believe it will take this to a whole new level. But lets not stop there, compare beam weapon ranges, ship ranges at various speeds, ship and buoy sensor ranges and____(filling in the blanks is most welcome). In the thick of an arms race making comparisons between opposing weapons performance easy to understand will fuel the fire. Numbers are good lack a certain jene se quoi that allows instant situational awareness .
PS. hope aurora's plumbing can support this.
Post by: Sotak246 on March 21, 2009, 12:55:48 AM
Post by: waresky on March 21, 2009, 09:57:16 AM
Post by: waresky on March 21, 2009, 10:09:33 AM
Post by: welchbloke on March 22, 2009, 05:55:03 PM
Post by: SteveAlt on March 23, 2009, 01:49:39 PM
Quote from: "welchbloke"
Comparison charts are useful, but I'd also like the capability to attach a max range ring to a particular class and display it on the system view. Couple this with a range ring for your own missiles and you have an extra quick reference situational awareness tool.Do you mean a max range ring for an alien class or one of your own? For your own classes you can already display weapon ranges using the options on the "Display 2" tab of the System View. Sensor ranges can be shown using the Sensors tab.
Steve
Post by: welchbloke on March 23, 2009, 02:12:54 PM
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
Sorry Steve, I wasn't totally clear, I meant alien classes.Quote from: "welchbloke"Comparison charts are useful, but I'd also like the capability to attach a max range ring to a particular class and display it on the system view. Couple this with a range ring for your own missiles and you have an extra quick reference situational awareness tool.Do you mean a max range ring for an alien class or one of your own? For your own classes you can already display weapon ranges using the options on the "Display 2" tab of the System View. Sensor ranges can be shown using the Sensors tab.
Steve
Post by: simon on July 17, 2009, 12:15:24 PM
:P .Any thoughts ?
Post by: Steve Walmsley on July 18, 2009, 03:19:25 AM
Quote from: "simon"
It's seems missile combatants have become to powerful and if you are beam armed your minor league material :? when arming for various combat(assault, deep space,anti-small craft) situations and not just load a jack of all trades all the times missile.Missiles are powerful but not as powerful as you might think. However, their main drawbacks are logistical rather than tactical. Building sufficient missiles and getting them to the right place at the right time can be a significant challenge. In addition, they can be defeated by well organised point defence and this is especially true for v4.1 where the building up of huge salvos using waypoints is no longer possible.
:P .Any thoughts ?
Steve