Aurora 4x
C# Aurora => Development Discussions => Topic started by: Borealis4x on August 01, 2019, 01:51:26 AM
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I haven't closely followed C# development but was wondering how new features added to the game will effect carrier operations. Will they be easier to manage? Will they even be viable?
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I haven't closely followed C# development but was wondering how new features added to the game will effect carrier operations. Will they be easier to manage? Will they even be viable?
So far I have found it is easier to design small craft because the sensors can be tiny and still useful.
With the new Fleet Organization, fighters are a lot easier to manage because you can put the strike group in a sub-fleet and then detach/launch that strike group very easily.
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I haven't closely followed C# development but was wondering how new features added to the game will effect carrier operations. Will they be easier to manage? Will they even be viable?
So far I have found it is easier to design small craft because the sensors can be tiny and still useful.
With the new Fleet Organization, fighters are a lot easier to manage because you can put the strike group in a sub-fleet and then detach/launch that strike group very easily.
Do you think big carriers have the advantage over big battleships? Carriers can more easily swap out their primary armaments (fighters) for the latest and greatest and can dedicate a much larger percentage of its tonnage to fleet support systems like sensors, jump-engines, and supplies as they don't have to invest as much into weaponry and armor. This also means they can dedicate more to engines to be faster than battleships as well.
At least, that's why real-world carriers are better than battleships. I don't have enough experience with the game to know if it holds true in Aurora as well, but from reading about the systems I think it might.
I've always wondered whether carriers would be dominate in space as well as on the oceans...
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I haven't closely followed C# development but was wondering how new features added to the game will effect carrier operations. Will they be easier to manage? Will they even be viable?
So far I have found it is easier to design small craft because the sensors can be tiny and still useful.
With the new Fleet Organization, fighters are a lot easier to manage because you can put the strike group in a sub-fleet and then detach/launch that strike group very easily.
Do you think big carriers have the advantage over big battleships? Carriers can more easily swap out their primary armaments (fighters) for the latest and greatest and can dedicate a much larger percentage of its tonnage to fleet support systems like sensors, jump-engines, and supplies as they don't have to invest as much into weaponry and armor. This also means they can dedicate more to engines to be faster than battleships as well.
At least, that's why real-world carriers are better than battleships. I don't have enough experience with the game to know if it holds true in Aurora as well, but from reading about the systems I think it might.
I've always wondered whether carriers would be dominate in space as well as on the oceans...
Carriers do dominate... But its a hell of investments... They control locale space until they run out of fuel and missiles... Of course this applies to missile ships to. Their fighters work very good against the AI´s but will probably have to be a bit redesigned against a human opponent.
Like in the real world carriers spelled the doom for capital ships, even thou they tried to stay by increasing the AA weapons, a lot... But its still a fat target to bomb/torpedo and to stay safer you need carriers to protect the other capitals. When we start to build the super carriers they can, if supplies, almost win a war by them self. But being able to upgrade and change the fighters is usually better/cheaper than upgrading your battleships but on the other hand my battleship usually are beam combatant, sometime with a battery off one shot missile tubes...
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I haven't closely followed C# development but was wondering how new features added to the game will effect carrier operations. Will they be easier to manage? Will they even be viable?
So far I have found it is easier to design small craft because the sensors can be tiny and still useful.
With the new Fleet Organization, fighters are a lot easier to manage because you can put the strike group in a sub-fleet and then detach/launch that strike group very easily.
Do you think big carriers have the advantage over big battleships? Carriers can more easily swap out their primary armaments (fighters) for the latest and greatest and can dedicate a much larger percentage of its tonnage to fleet support systems like sensors, jump-engines, and supplies as they don't have to invest as much into weaponry and armor. This also means they can dedicate more to engines to be faster than battleships as well.
At least, that's why real-world carriers are better than battleships. I don't have enough experience with the game to know if it holds true in Aurora as well, but from reading about the systems I think it might.
I've always wondered whether carriers would be dominate in space as well as on the oceans...
Carriers do dominate... But its a hell of investments... They control locale space until they run out of fuel and missiles... Of course this applies to missile ships to. Their fighters work very good against the AI´s but will probably have to be a bit redesigned against a human opponent.
Like in the real world carriers spelled the doom for capital ships, even thou they tried to stay by increasing the AA weapons, a lot... But its still a fat target to bomb/torpedo and to stay safer you need carriers to protect the other capitals. When we start to build the super carriers they can, if supplies, almost win a war by them self. But being able to upgrade and change the fighters is usually better/cheaper than upgrading your battleships but on the other hand my battleship usually are beam combatant, sometime with a battery off one shot missile tubes...
Would you say that at the end of the day carriers only accomplish just as much as missiles ships with extra steps?
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I haven't closely followed C# development but was wondering how new features added to the game will effect carrier operations. Will they be easier to manage? Will they even be viable?
So far I have found it is easier to design small craft because the sensors can be tiny and still useful.
With the new Fleet Organization, fighters are a lot easier to manage because you can put the strike group in a sub-fleet and then detach/launch that strike group very easily.
Do you think big carriers have the advantage over big battleships? Carriers can more easily swap out their primary armaments (fighters) for the latest and greatest and can dedicate a much larger percentage of its tonnage to fleet support systems like sensors, jump-engines, and supplies as they don't have to invest as much into weaponry and armor. This also means they can dedicate more to engines to be faster than battleships as well.
At least, that's why real-world carriers are better than battleships. I don't have enough experience with the game to know if it holds true in Aurora as well, but from reading about the systems I think it might.
I've always wondered whether carriers would be dominate in space as well as on the oceans...
Carriers do dominate... But its a hell of investments... They control locale space until they run out of fuel and missiles... Of course this applies to missile ships to. Their fighters work very good against the AI´s but will probably have to be a bit redesigned against a human opponent.
Like in the real world carriers spelled the doom for capital ships, even thou they tried to stay by increasing the AA weapons, a lot... But its still a fat target to bomb/torpedo and to stay safer you need carriers to protect the other capitals. When we start to build the super carriers they can, if supplies, almost win a war by them self. But being able to upgrade and change the fighters is usually better/cheaper than upgrading your battleships but on the other hand my battleship usually are beam combatant, sometime with a battery off one shot missile tubes...
Would you say that at the end of the day carriers only accomplish just as much as missiles ships with extra steps?
It might, one of the pluses for carrier based fighters is range and then speed. Fighters can be used as system defences, but still excells in carrier strikes mode. But we have to wait for the "finished" C+ to see what is possible...
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Carriers are terrible, and their fighters and missiles are worse. . .
. . . in a nebula.
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Most 'space terrain' throws a major wrench in Aurora's conventional wisdom, and it only takes one 'interesting' system in the way of your offensive to convert your mighty fleet into so many expensive target drones.
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I think the most important change is the sensor model.
Tiny fighters will rule missile combat, at least without a ridiculous investment into stealth, electronic warfare, sensors and fire controls.
Carriers will probably be somewhat attractive. Changes to the engine model mean independent long-range fighters would have lower performance than they do now.
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I think the most important change is the sensor model.
Tiny fighters will rule missile combat, at least without a ridiculous investment into stealth, electronic warfare, sensors and fire controls.
Carriers will probably be somewhat attractive. Changes to the engine model mean independent long-range fighters would have lower performance than they do now.
I think it's important to consider the substantial improvement to EM sensors in this dynamic. Quoting Steve;
Active Sensor Range = SQRT((Racial Sensor Strength * HS * Racial EM Sensitivity * (Resolution ^ (1/1.5)) / PI) * 1,000,000 km
EM Detection Range = SQRT(Racial EM Sensitivity * HS * Target Signature ) * 250,000 km.
Active Sensor Signature = Resolution * Racial Sensor Strength * HS
This means that the size of the EM sensor required to detect an active sensor at its own range is given as:
Required EM HS = (16/PI) / (Resolution ^ (1/3))
Average fighter sensors will be in the 2-5 HS range, high-resolution sensors will be needed to remain competitive at range.
For a conservative 80 HS resolution sensor, the required EM sensor is only 1.20 HS.
For an optimistic 16 HS resolution sensor, the required EM sensor is still only 2.10 HS.
For a large 4 HS resolution sensor like on a major warship, the required EM sensor is 3.30 HS
For a 1 HS resolution missile sensor, the required EM sensor is 5.10 HS
Even accounting for the fact that missile fire controls are four times as quiet as active sensors, a ~400t EM sensor is neither very expensive nor so large that it cannot be spammed. It's absolutely possible to stuff EM sensors as large as 800t into a major warship.
And electronic warfare isn't too expensive either. The first tech is only 5000 RP, and it's not likely you can just skip it considering how vital it is for both missile and beam warfare. Obtaining effective ECM or ECCM for fighters is an added cost though, and the 15t version is a flat 20% less effective than the full-sized 150t version. Closing the range further reduces the required EM sensor size.
IMO, fleet combat will likely turn into a peekaboo game of who flicks their actives on first, considering passives will mostly outrange them. Fighters will still be somewhat useful as expendable scouting assets, but drones might be better at that.
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The sensor model in C# surely favour fighters and FAC allot more than in VB6 Aurora.
Carriers will probably me more important than before.
Not only that but we will likely see more dispersed formations of ships now because of how the sensor model works. It will likely be more dangerous to put all eggs in one basket.
Not sure that drones will dominate the active sensor scene, passive sensors perhaps but not active. Active drones are a bit too easy to destroy with passive EM missiles. Passive EM missiles can be fired without active guidance quite easily in stationary drones.
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With the changes to the thermal sensor mechanics that note that ships that are not moving have a considerably decreased signature, thermal sensor equipped missiles may make a very useful early ambush weapon, while as shields become more powerful and thus louder in signature an active shield system would be just as vulnerable to a long range passive missile strike. Only thing you need to do is guesstimate where the missile is likely to pick up the target's signature when they both arrive and drop a few waypoints there in a spread to make sure you get at least a few in range.
Then just launch at the waypoints from very long range, with the missiles expected to be nearly empty by the time they hit the target even if it directly flees in the other direction.
And that's not counting the possibility of dropping a number of slow but with very large warhead missiles from detection range on a planet with passive em sensors.
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In my current campaign, the deep space tracking stations on a planet were picking up emissions from a size 6 active sensor missile at ninety million kilometres :)
The thermal signature of the missiles was detected at ten million kilometres. I've noticed that in general missiles are being detected on thermal before active, even with dedicated anti-missile sensors.
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Well, there went that plan. Clearly, covert strikes are most likely not a thing, especially as tech progresses. Unless you are willing to invest crazy amounts of money in EM/TH shielded missiles, and that's even possible.
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Well, you can still launch covert strikes where the ships launching the missiles aren't detected. It just seems like the missiles themselves are pretty easy to spot, which might actually make for more interesting tactical play IMHO. And it doesn't invalidate anti-missile actives since you still need them to actually engage incoming missiles.
It also occurs to me that it will have a similar effect on passive seeker missiles, probably giving them a much larger lock on range and probably making a small passive sensor package on missiles the default since they help reduce missiles wasted to overkilling.
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If missile engines are easy to spot (90 million kilometers is really long range), any ship launching them will have been spotted far from launch range due to its heat signature.
You are right about passive seeker missiles and ships though.
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If missile engines are easy to spot (90 million kilometers is really long range), any ship launching them will have been spotted far from launch range due to its heat signature.
You are right about passive seeker missiles and ships though.
The 90 million km was an active sensor missile not the thermal which Steve said was 10 million km.
Since the sensor model no longer is linear then detecting something twice the range will now take roughly four times the sensitivity so the range fall of quite rapidly after a while even against something with a high thermal signature.
The most important thing is that you detach the active sensor from the ships or fighters firing the missiles to hide where they are and at what vector the missiles will come at an enemy group of ships. This is the easiest way to make sure the enemy can't counter strike until it is too late or even at all. This is probably why I think Aurora C# games will become allot more interesting since finding the enemy while not being found in return will become very important which also might lead to more interesting skirmishing fights rather than all out attacks against giant fleets all located in one single spot.
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If missile engines are easy to spot (90 million kilometers is really long range), any ship launching them will have been spotted far from launch range due to its heat signature.
I disagree, primarily because I don't go blazing around at max speed with max-boost engines making up 40% of my ship's displacement.
I bet you could get a missile boat's thermal sig down to about four times that of a size-6 missile designed all-out for speed.
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Anything that decreases the power of doomstack, ie all ships in one big blob, versus a more "realistic"/"immersive" deployment is a plus.
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Only if it comes with the tools to easily do that. The biggest upside for doom stacks for me is it's easier to move them and supply them in terms of time, annoyance, and number of clicks.
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Only if it comes with the tools to easily do that. The biggest upside for doom stacks for me is it's easier to move them and supply them in terms of time, annoyance, and number of clicks.
The old fleet organisation system worked pretty good but the new one seems really much better for this purpose.
Once it is set up the number of clicks should be tolerable.
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Anything that decreases the power of doomstack, ie all ships in one big blob, versus a more "realistic"/"immersive" deployment is a plus.
I was actually just thinking that if you can easily see missiles coming from 10mkm+ out, it might start to make a lot more sense to detach escorts to be between you and the missiles and hit them with area defense fire.
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"Doomstacks" aren't unrealistic. Concentration of force is a real military principle. You want to keep your big ships together or you risk being defeated in detail.
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"Don't divide the fleet" is a naval truism. During both the First and Second World Wars the major naval combatants usually concentrated the overwhelming majority of their striking power into a single battlefleet. The occasions when they did divide the fleet are considered mistakes. Sending Shokaku and Zuikaku to the Coral Sea probably ended up costing the IJN the Battle of Midway.
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"Doomstacks" aren't unrealistic. Concentration of force is a real military principle. You want to keep your big ships together or you risk being defeated in detail.
I also tend to agree that peoples claims about doomstacks tend to belie the historical reality. In any situation where the position of the enemies large assets is in serious question, you are more or less forced to concentrate huge piles of ships together to avoid accidentally encountering them and getting crushed.
That having been said, I think the direction we are going (distant pickets to help detect incoming missiles) is a fun and novel concept and perhaps you can agree. e: Minding, it doesn't actually remove the idea of huge stacks of ships, the formation is just spread out on your screen rather than being concentrated into a single exact point. Which also might lead to fun situations where you have part of your screen destroyed and it actually takes time to repair the screen, during which time your sensor coverage is degraded in a particular direction.
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"Doomstacks" aren't unrealistic. Concentration of force is a real military principle. You want to keep your big ships together or you risk being defeated in detail.
"Don't divide the fleet" is a naval truism. During both the First and Second World Wars the major naval combatants usually concentrated the overwhelming majority of their striking power into a single battlefleet.
For some of us, the terms 'doomstack' and 'battle fleet' are not synonymous. It was not uncommon for Great War fleets to have a nautical mile between major combatants, with screens two or three nautical miles out. In other words, escorts at a significant fraction their own maximum gun range away from the battle line.
I also tend to agree that peoples claims about doomstacks tend to belie the historical reality. In any situation where the position of the enemies large assets is in serious question, you are more or less forced to concentrate huge piles of ships together to avoid accidentally encountering them and getting crushed.
That having been said, I think the direction we are going (distant pickets to help detect incoming missiles) is a fun and novel concept and perhaps you can agree. e: Minding, it doesn't actually remove the idea of huge stacks of ships, the formation is just spread out on your screen rather than being concentrated into a single exact point. Which also might lead to fun situations where you have part of your screen destroyed and it actually takes time to repair the screen, during which time your sensor coverage is degraded in a particular direction.
QIV has it right. I want a ring of escorts around my battlewagons as standard fleet formation, and I want the squadron-wide 'continuous time on sensors tracking bonus vs missiles' to function correctly so that my PD escorts get a tangible benefit from spreading out 100,000 along the axis of threat.
VB6 Aurora got me halfway, with Deploy/Recall Escorts orders and saved formations, but sadly it meant degrading the effectiveness of my point defense to do it since the ships ended up outside of effective supporting range of each other.
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Only if it comes with the tools to easily do that. The biggest upside for doom stacks for me is it's easier to move them and supply them in terms of time, annoyance, and number of clicks.
Yes, I'm hoping for some form of drag and drop functionality on the fleet screen to manage deployment of ships in relation to the direction of advance / threat. The old distance and bearing inputs worked but I felt were a lot of faff and stopped me using them. I'd also given up on using fighters for the role due to the huge click fest on trying to cycle fighters in order to manage deployment time and fuel endurance. Some way to address that would be great.
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Yes... there is a huge difference between a battle fleet and doomstack. A battle fleet in WW2 was made up of many elements such as task-forces, screening ships, scouts, planes etc... These fleets were usually spread out over vast distances in order to pursue and engage enemy forces while also able to support ground operations, conduct reconnaissance etc.
In the game this means you will not keep all your ships just in one spot but you will need to break it up into task-forces, screening and scouting elements. If there are several ground installation in a system you might need to divide some forces to protect them, at least to give fair warning of any incoming threats. You might need to provide support for a ground invasion while at the same time intercept an enemy fleet that jump into the system since otherwise it can bypass you and threat other systems.
You will need to provide security for your scouting elements, this might turn into skirmishing fights or you will loose your scouting elements faster than you can replace them. Same thing with screening forces might happen.
Question is how will you defend your scouting effort in order to find the enemy main battle fleet assets before they find yours. You might also have a supporting task-force that is detached from the main battle fleet that also need to be protected. Support ships often are much slower than main combat ships for example and allot more vulnerable.
If your main striking force are carriers you don't necessarily need to keep them in one spot so you might spread them out in a few task forces to increase the scouting envelope and possibility to defend the scouting forces over a bigger area. If you want to strike you can still group bombers from multiple carriers from different task-forces to do so.
The new scouting model will likely produce these results with smaller sensors being allot more powerful and useful now against both small and big ships.
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World war 1 tactics aren't really applicable to Aurora because the threat environment is totally different. The main threat is standoff missiles that are usually 10-20x faster than ships. In WWII, when the Japanese surface threat had evaporated, and the main threat was from aircraft and especially kamikazes, you saw tight formations so that ships could provide mutual, overlapping AA defense.
I've experimented with screening ships in Aurora. They're useful if they meaningfully extend your detection range and are survivable. Unfortunately, a cruiser-sized scout or screen is usually not survivable because the AI likes to shoot at the closest target. For scouting, I try to give each major ship a scout fighter, like WWII cruisers would utilize floatplanes. Sending a cruiser out front to scout in the face of enemy guided missiles is suicide.
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"Doomstacks" aren't unrealistic. Concentration of force is a real military principle.
"Don't divide the fleet" is a naval truism.
??? You two are completely missing my point and it boggles my mind since I thought everyone who has played Aurora would have come to realize this:
Aurora VB6 forces players to stick all the ships in their TF/TG into a single point and keep them there. Doing anything else weakens your defences significantly. This is because how sensors and PD currently work. Usability of the interface plays its part too, as QuakeIV mentioned. The only reason to ever detach a ship from a doomstack was for it to take care of a cripple while the stack itself kept pursuing the enemy.
With the changes to sensors, the fixing of missile tracking bonus and the improvements to the Fleet Organization window, Aurora C# gives the impression that having escorts surround your capital ships and scouts pushed ahead and to the sides will actually be useful and improve your chances of victory, instead of being either useless busy work or actively harmful.
Doomstack is a term that describes the bad habit of strategy game designers to ignore their own game mechanics that lead to silly abuse of them, like in Civilization or Hearts of Iron or Stellaris, where doing anything else except a doomstack was to gimp yourself. I'm not talking about having one's fleet concentrated in one system, or waging an interstellar war in a single system at a time - that's perfectly fine. I'm talking specifically of the game play issue, caused by game mechanics, of having your entire fleet in a single point in space-time.
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World war 1 tactics aren't really applicable to Aurora because the threat environment is totally different. The main threat is standoff missiles that are usually 10-20x faster than ships. In WWII, when the Japanese surface threat had evaporated, and the main threat was from aircraft and especially kamikazes, you saw tight formations so that ships could provide mutual, overlapping AA defense.
I've experimented with screening ships in Aurora. They're useful if they meaningfully extend your detection range and are survivable. Unfortunately, a cruiser-sized scout or screen is usually not survivable because the AI likes to shoot at the closest target. For scouting, I try to give each major ship a scout fighter, like WWII cruisers would utilize floatplanes. Sending a cruiser out front to scout in the face of enemy guided missiles is suicide.
In WW2 they did NOT put all the ships in one spot, they were organised into task-forces that could be about maybe 5-10 capital ships/cruisers or some such. And even within a task-force not all ships would be able to contribute AAA fire to each other. Task-forces could also be separated with huge distances and be hours if not days in between them in distances.
During Midway the US had two carrier groups while the Japanese also had two carrier groups and a third invasion fleet.
It is the games mechanic that in VB6 Aurora forces you to use the empire state formation almost exclusively. If you now can get real benefits from splitting a fleet up that is good from a game mechanic point of view and also more "realistic" if we look at modern fleet warfare. Since the sensor model will become more like radar on earth with more limited range (non linear) you will now also need to defend the scouting elements in some form.
I could even see reasons for splitting your main capital ships in different task-forces in order to cover more space within a system while conducting the hide and seek game which might lead to more skirmishing fights.
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Being able to operate separate task forces was a luxury made possible by American numerical superiority. And ships operated in separate groups/squadrons because before computers, an admiral commanded a battle from the bridge - if you depend on being able to look out and see what's going on in order to give orders, there's a limit to how many ships you can command effectively. If you want a real world example of how splitting your force can backfire spectacularly, look at what happened to the Japanese at the battle of Leyte gulf.
Another thing, that no one mentioned yet, is that wars in Aurora are highly linear. It seems like there's usually only one jump point in or out of enemy territory; once you know the jump point route to the enemy, the most effective defense is to concentrate everything you have on that jump point. If you want to make things like separate task groups and diversionary attacks viable, the number of interconnections between systems needs to be boosted again so the Galaxy map is less linear.
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Being able to operate separate task forces was a luxury made possible by American numerical superiority. And ships operated in separate groups/squadrons because before computers, an admiral commanded a battle from the bridge - if you depend on being able to look out and see what's going on in order to give orders, there's a limit to how many ships you can command effectively. If you want a real world example of how splitting your force can backfire spectacularly, look at what happened to the Japanese at the battle of Leyte gulf.
Another thing, that no one mentioned yet, is that wars in Aurora are highly linear. It seems like there's usually only one jump point in or out of enemy territory; once you know the jump point route to the enemy, the most effective defense is to concentrate everything you have on that jump point. If you want to make things like separate task groups and diversionary attacks viable, the number of interconnections between systems needs to be boosted again so the Galaxy map is less linear.
Everyone did this in WW2, not just the Americans. Also, the Japanese did not loose the battle of Layette Gulf because they had many battle groups (as did the Americans too), they simply were outmatched to begin with.
Fleets operate like this today as well and computers have very little to do with it, real world political and military goals and needs does. The real world are way more complex than any game can even hope to simulate. You could try a game like Command modern Air/Naval combat to understand how modern fleets actually operate and why they deploy in task-forces.
I do agree in some sense that jump points can make wars quite linear as there are only one possible approach. But that might certainly not be true if you play with a multi-faction Earth start though. You can also have potential enemies in more than one front and you never know when and if these enemies work together or not.
In any way... no one would ever be in their right mind in the real world to pool all their ships in a fleet in one giant fleet and head out to sea, there are many reason for why this is a bad idea.
If the game can make more realistic strategies viable with changes to some of the mechanics this is a good thing and carriers certainly will play an important roll in this. Or basically any ship with a hangar... you don't need dedicated carriers to use fighters and FAC effectively.
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Being able to operate separate task forces was a luxury made possible by American numerical superiority. And ships operated in separate groups/squadrons because before computers, an admiral commanded a battle from the bridge - if you depend on being able to look out and see what's going on in order to give orders, there's a limit to how many ships you can command effectively. If you want a real world example of how splitting your force can backfire spectacularly, look at what happened to the Japanese at the battle of Leyte gulf.
Another thing, that no one mentioned yet, is that wars in Aurora are highly linear. It seems like there's usually only one jump point in or out of enemy territory; once you know the jump point route to the enemy, the most effective defense is to concentrate everything you have on that jump point. If you want to make things like separate task groups and diversionary attacks viable, the number of interconnections between systems needs to be boosted again so the Galaxy map is less linear.
Everyone did this in WW2, not just the Americans. Also, the Japanese did not loose the battle of Layette Gulf because they had many battle groups (as did the Americans too), they simply were outmatched to begin with.
They were never going to win, but they didn't do themselves any favors by sending all their carriers off to die alone as a diversion, and splitting their battleships and basically throwing two of them away.
Fleets operate like this today as well and computers have very little to do with it, real world political and military goals and needs does. The real world are way more complex than any game can even hope to simulate. You could try a game like Command modern Air/Naval combat to understand how modern fleets actually operate and why they deploy in task-forces.
I've played it. I also have real-world military experience.
I do agree in some sense that jump points can make wars quite linear as there are only one possible approach. But that might certainly not be true if you play with a multi-faction Earth start though. You can also have potential enemies in more than one front and you never know when and if these enemies work together or not.
In any way... no one would ever be in their right mind in the real world to pool all their ships in a fleet in one giant fleet and head out to sea, there are many reason for why this is a bad idea.
Except that this was standard practice from ancient times, through the age of sail, into the Russo-Japanese War and World War I. Ships of the line, all the way into the dreadnought era, would operate in the largest formations possible whenever possible, with frigates and eventually cruisers delegated for colonial defense, commerce raiding and protection, screening the battleline, and scouting duties.
The only good reasons to divide your forces are: you're fighting on multiple fronts; something (like a supply depot or jump point) absolutely must be defended; some of your ships are too slow or obsolete to operate with the main force; some of your ships are unready due to training/maintenance/fuel/ordnance levels.
If the game can make more realistic strategies viable with changes to some of the mechanics this is a good thing and carriers certainly will play an important roll in this. Or basically any ship with a hangar... you don't need dedicated carriers to use fighters and FAC effectively.
The game doesn't represent reality, but a hypothetical simulation of superscience space warfare. An effective strategy within the game is by default "realistic" in the sense that, if somehow the laws of physics changed to match trans-Newtonian physics as depicted in Aurora, the same strategies would emerge, because people do what works. You're not asking for more "realistic" tactics, but more "interesting" tactics.
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Being able to operate separate task forces was a luxury made possible by American numerical superiority. And ships operated in separate groups/squadrons because before computers, an admiral commanded a battle from the bridge - if you depend on being able to look out and see what's going on in order to give orders, there's a limit to how many ships you can command effectively. If you want a real world example of how splitting your force can backfire spectacularly, look at what happened to the Japanese at the battle of Leyte gulf.
Another thing, that no one mentioned yet, is that wars in Aurora are highly linear. It seems like there's usually only one jump point in or out of enemy territory; once you know the jump point route to the enemy, the most effective defense is to concentrate everything you have on that jump point. If you want to make things like separate task groups and diversionary attacks viable, the number of interconnections between systems needs to be boosted again so the Galaxy map is less linear.
Everyone did this in WW2, not just the Americans. Also, the Japanese did not loose the battle of Layette Gulf because they had many battle groups (as did the Americans too), they simply were outmatched to begin with.
They were never going to win, but they didn't do themselves any favors by sending all their carriers off to die alone as a diversion, and splitting their battleships and basically throwing two of them away.
Fleets operate like this today as well and computers have very little to do with it, real world political and military goals and needs does. The real world are way more complex than any game can even hope to simulate. You could try a game like Command modern Air/Naval combat to understand how modern fleets actually operate and why they deploy in task-forces.
I've played it. I also have real-world military experience.
I do agree in some sense that jump points can make wars quite linear as there are only one possible approach. But that might certainly not be true if you play with a multi-faction Earth start though. You can also have potential enemies in more than one front and you never know when and if these enemies work together or not.
In any way... no one would ever be in their right mind in the real world to pool all their ships in a fleet in one giant fleet and head out to sea, there are many reason for why this is a bad idea.
Except that this was standard practice from ancient times, through the age of sail, into the Russo-Japanese War and World War I. Ships of the line, all the way into the dreadnought era, would operate in the largest formations possible whenever possible, with frigates and eventually cruisers delegated for colonial defense, commerce raiding and protection, screening the battleline, and scouting duties.
The only good reasons to divide your forces are: you're fighting on multiple fronts; something (like a supply depot or jump point) absolutely must be defended; some of your ships are too slow or obsolete to operate with the main force; some of your ships are unready due to training/maintenance/fuel/ordnance levels.
If the game can make more realistic strategies viable with changes to some of the mechanics this is a good thing and carriers certainly will play an important roll in this. Or basically any ship with a hangar... you don't need dedicated carriers to use fighters and FAC effectively.
The game doesn't represent reality, but a hypothetical simulation of superscience space warfare. An effective strategy within the game is by default "realistic" in the sense that, if somehow the laws of physics changed to match trans-Newtonian physics as depicted in Aurora, the same strategies would emerge, because people do what works. You're not asking for more "realistic" tactics, but more "interesting" tactics.
If Leyete had played out differently then the Japanese tactics would have been praised as bold and innovative... ;) ...we look at things from a different perspective and have all the facts, they never did when it happened. The US almost bought the Japanese feint manoeuvre but they could not capitalise on it.
As communication and weapon lethality have advanced so have the deployment of military assets both tactically and strategically become more dispersed as information is key to successful military operations. The one who have the information advantage is at a huge advantage over the one that doesn't. This is somewhat how the new sensor model will be changed from the old one. Before you only needed basically two size 50 active sensor one res 1 and one larger resolution, that will no longer be very effective from a research or practical perspective unless you are allot more advanced than an opponent.
Unless you talk about small nations in ancient or medieval times then fleets have almost never been focused into one giant fleet of doom. Sure, large fleet battles require allot of ships and sometimes had the majority of some nations ships in them, that does not mean that fleets was structured and used like this in wartime most of the time. These battles are rather the exception not the rule. In real life there are no do overs and trial and error tactics can be harsh learned experiences. In real life there is logistical nightmares as well as keeping information about troop/fleet movement hidden as big problems.
If you look at ancient and historic events then logistics is what sets high constraint on huge fleets or concentration of forces. These forces require huge investment in resources and good management so often are time caped. So unless you can use them to good effect in a certain time frame it is wasted time and resources. This is one good reason for why large concentration of forces are more the exception than the rule, even historically. Just look at the Roman operational campaigns in ancient times and the Romans had the most advanced logistical and available resources the world had ever seen. Most of the historical battles we read about in history are the exception to the rule, not the norm.
In C# Aurora you are not going to be able to station an infinite number of 10.000t ships at a specific place just because you have 10.000t maintenance capacity. This will force you to have many fleet bases if you have a big sprawling empire. If you play a multi-faction game then dispersed forces might be a must, just as in real life. Against the AI and regular NPR things obviously are more black and white and simplistic.
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Another thing, that no one mentioned yet, is that wars in Aurora are highly linear. It seems like there's usually only one jump point in or out of enemy territory; once you know the jump point route to the enemy, the most effective defense is to concentrate everything you have on that jump point. If you want to make things like separate task groups and diversionary attacks viable, the number of interconnections between systems needs to be boosted again so the Galaxy map is less linear.
We're still talking about two different things, I'm like 90% sure that this argument is unnecessary. Linear on the strategic scale is fine, I don't mind fighting a campaign across a line on the galactic map against a single opponent. But I would much rather have more interesting and immersive operational doctrine on the tactical scale, inside a system. Obviously it makes sense to focus most of your ships for a JP assault - but I would prefer game mechanics that encourage that fleet then to spread out in the system, instead of staying as blob in a single, infinitesimal point.
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The main avantage of big fleets in one spot is shared defense against missiles, reduce that and you will have more small formations.
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Yeah and that's what seems to be happening with C# - it's no longer crucial to keep all ships together. Scouts are much more important and powerful since it'll be far more difficult to have a single sensor ship with all-powerful active/passive sensors that can see most of the system. It'll be easier to spot and destroy incoming missiles. And perhaps most importantly, the new GUI will make it so much easier and quicker to detach elements of your fleet than what we're used to.
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Yeah and that's what seems to be happening with C# - it's no longer crucial to keep all ships together. Scouts are much more important and powerful since it'll be far more difficult to have a single sensor ship with all-powerful active/passive sensors that can see most of the system. It'll be easier to spot and destroy incoming missiles. And perhaps most importantly, the new GUI will make it so much easier and quicker to detach elements of your fleet than what we're used to.
Yes... the point in general is scouting and how that works. Since you need to detach scouting forces you also need to protect said scouting forces. It you don't then the one that does will likely win the scouting war in the end. This also means splitting forces up in tactical operations.
This does not diminish the importance of concentration of force in any way, just change some aspects of it.
So even if it is more important to have ships in one spot so they can benefit from shared point defence it is better of you can avoid being hit in the first place by proper scouting and strike the opponent without retaliation.
This is obviously where carriers have a big advantage over say regular missile ships. Carriers can still coordinate joint strikes against an enemy force with relative ease even if they are a fair distance apart from each other in more than one task-force.
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On the plus side, the new system should support all sorts of interesting hide-and-seek games between humans if diverse fleets are a given.
On the minus side, it seems less robust. A few things, most notably tiny fighters, will be shooting fish in a barrel unless facing exact and technologically sophisticated counters with absolutely no room for error.
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On the plus side, the new system should support all sorts of interesting hide-and-seek games between humans if diverse fleets are a given.
On the minus side, it seems less robust. A few things, most notably tiny fighters, will be shooting fish in a barrel unless facing exact and technologically sophisticated counters with absolutely no room for error.
It is easier to detect small fighters in C# than VB6. It is also easier for small fighters to have reasonable sensors, so it will depend on the balance. One other major factor I have already run into in my current campaign is that you no longer know the range of hostile sensors - only their total output for detection by EM. To know range and resolution you will need to study them with ELINT. Until then, you are sending in fighters and hoping the enemy can't detect them. I aborted a strike because I was concerned about that exact problem.
New Active Sensor Model: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg102701#msg102701
New Passive Sensor Model: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg103085#msg103085
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On the plus side, the new system should support all sorts of interesting hide-and-seek games between humans if diverse fleets are a given.
On the minus side, it seems less robust. A few things, most notably tiny fighters, will be shooting fish in a barrel unless facing exact and technologically sophisticated counters with absolutely no room for error.
It is easier to detect small fighters in C# than VB6. It is also easier for small fighters to have reasonable sensors, so it will depend on the balance. One other major factor I have already run into in my current campaign is that you no longer know the range of hostile sensors - only their total output for detection by EM. To know range and resolution you will need to study them with ELINT. Until then, you are sending in fighters and hoping the enemy can't detect them. I aborted a strike because I was concerned about that exact problem.
New Active Sensor Model: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg102701#msg102701
New Passive Sensor Model: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg103085#msg103085
In some sense they are but small sensors are also more effective now so you will need a very large low res to paint a fighter at a decent distance, so I guess that will mostly be done by forward scouts as well. A 300t res 100 is roughly equal with a 2000t res 5 at equal tech level.
The benefit with fighters or FAC is that you can easily paint the same target from several vectors and alternate between them so they can't be engaged easily with missiles from a long range unless some form of interceptors are used. But then we are back to the splitting up of forces to guard your own scouts from such threat and kill incoming interceptors etc... Sure you might not know if your missile fighters missile and fire-control range is outside the enemy active range and that might actually be more restrictive than the active sensor itself, will be interesting to find out.
I also feel that passive sensors, especially thermal sensors will be more important than before for scouting and reconnaissance.
In my opinion there seem to be a nice balance between the need for larger more capable ships since fighters will still need carriers to do any sort of deep space missions and larger ships will in general be vulnerable to fast low range fighters and decently fast scouts with a bit more endurance. I for one are quite pleased that having a wide variety of ship sizes and classes will be important for an effective fleet.
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I have to say trying to shadow an enemy ship for 100 odd days in order to get the ELINT module to work is certainly going to be "interesting". I assume that for a lot of engagements you simply won't know the capabilities of the enemy sensors.
Does the intelligence on a sensor attach to the sensor or the ship contact?
Very much looking forward to reading the next campaign update to see all of this in action.
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I have to say trying to shadow an enemy ship for 100 odd days in order to get the ELINT module to work is certainly going to be "interesting". I assume that for a lot of engagements you simply won't know the capabilities of the enemy sensors.
Does the intelligence on a sensor attach to the sensor or the ship contact?
Very much looking forward to reading the next campaign update to see all of this in action.
To the sensor. If another ship has the same sensor, you will see the same ELINT data.
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I'm kind of curious if a new optimum 'meta' will pop up around disabling the enemy's engines and then keeping the ship around for ELINT to go over.
Probably not, because at that point a more effective solution would be Marines. But it might be funny.
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I have to say trying to shadow an enemy ship for 100 odd days in order to get the ELINT module to work is certainly going to be "interesting". I assume that for a lot of engagements you simply won't know the capabilities of the enemy sensors.
Does the intelligence on a sensor attach to the sensor or the ship contact?
Very much looking forward to reading the next campaign update to see all of this in action.
I also should have mentioned that you don't have to follow the same ship around. Any ELINT detection of that sensor on any ship that carries it will add to the total for the sensor.
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I really like having more unknowns to work with, the intent behind the changes and the intelligence gathering aspect of it sound great.
Thanks for responding to my concerns, Steve - and I really hope I'm wrong. But the tables you linked are what caused my concern in the first place. From a thread I made about this:
Current sensor system:
Assuming equal tech, a 250t scout fighter and a 1000t scout FAC devoting the same percentage to a resolution-10 sensor (the geometric mean of their respective sizes) will detect one another at the same range.
The FAC will have 4x the sensor range against the designed 500t target.
If the size of opposing scout craft is known and the ideal sensor resolution is chosen instead, the FAC will detect the fighter from twice the range (at 4x the expense).
C# sensor system:
If both craft devote the same percentage to a resolution10-sensor, the 250t fighter will pick up the 1000t FAC at twice the range it's detected itself.
The FAC will have twice the sensor range against the designed 500t target.
If the size of opposing scout craft is known and the ideal resolution is chosen instead, the FAC will detect the fighter at 25% longer range (at 4x the expense).
In the new system, being smaller than expected seems a much bigger problem for the enemy than being larger and more capable than expected, where it's currently more symmetrical. Gaining a range advantage with larger ships hinges on getting things exactly right, and may be near-impossible with a small tech disadvantage. Add cost considerations (which may translate into number of variants with different sensor configurations) and I see a race to the smallest practical craft. Stealth tech etc. will be an additional trump card eventually, but the game remains the same.
I'll have fun poking at things, looking for ways to defend against small craft without resorting to smaller craft will be an interesting challenge.
But things brought up as problematic in VB6 Aurora, like max-size fine-grained sensors, look less dominant and tend to be comparatively expensive in some way or other.
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I will be keeping an eye on balance and if it does turn out to be a problem, I will change it.
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In the new system, being smaller than expected seems a much bigger problem for the enemy than being larger and more capable than expected, where it's currently more symmetrical. Gaining a range advantage with larger ships hinges on getting things exactly right, and may be near-impossible with a small tech disadvantage. Add cost considerations (which may translate into number of variants with different sensor configurations) and I see a race to the smallest practical craft. Stealth tech etc. will be an additional trump card eventually, but the game remains the same.
I'll have fun poking at things, looking for ways to defend against small craft without resorting to smaller craft will be an interesting challenge.
But things brought up as problematic in VB6 Aurora, like max-size fine-grained sensors, look less dominant and tend to be comparatively expensive in some way or other.
To be honest this is going to be more difficult and complex than it sounds. Sure... it is more expensive to build and research a bigger sensor but where do you put the boundary of too big and how small can you make them not to be detected by something bigger at longer range for a reasonable price. A really small fighter with a large res sensor can be detected at fairly long range now even with a sensor with quite a bit lower res than the size of that craft. If you have decent sized res 1 and say res 2, 6, 18, 80 sensors on say 750-1000t crafts then really small crafts can have trouble. You also can have 500t crafts easily outrange 150t scouts for a very cheap price.
So... where is the border and what is deemed too expensive, quality can be very important sometimes.
The point is to be cheap enough... then we also have passive sensors which also favours slightly bigger ships as well now with smaller signatures being easier to pick up.
Missile ranges is also going to be shorter.
This probably means that making your scouts too small can be dangerous so you might want to hedge with several types of scouting crafts of different shapes and sizes and base sensor resolutions on known enemy ship classes as much as possible.
Obviously keeping sensor system small means you can optimise them against enemy crafts more easily but that also has a price not only in resources but time to produce the ships and parts as well. If you need the system yesterday you need to use what you have. I think that keeping sensors at around 300-400t range should be affordable from a maintainability purpose and good enough to be competitive in most situations. But investing in some who are a bit larger could probably pay of as well. This would make mostly decently large fighters or FAC the best options for competitive scouting forces. It would not be prohibitively expensive to build and research a few 4-500t fighter classes with a wide array of resolutions.
This is also where my conversation on protecting scouts comes in. A small group of destroyers with hangars to house some different small scout crafts and good enough offensive fire-power can become very important. You will not scout with active sensors since they are easily detected with passives much further away than what they detect something. So once a scout is detected if you then have easy access to fire-power close by you can clear them out and withdraw the destroyers to a safe place, they might sometimes not even have been detected properly either, depends on the scout or scouts found I guess.