Aurora 4x
C# Aurora => C# Suggestions => Topic started by: plasticpanzers on April 17, 2020, 03:02:28 PM
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I am glad there is a new ground combat version of Aurora in C# but I disagree on the deletion of a dedicated
PDC and replacing it with ground components. Generally you cannot plop a gun turret in a field and call it
space defense. Any fortification requires layers of protection. Besides the numerous Sci-Fi versions of PDC
these are basically really coast defense forts or land forts. Two examples are Fort Drum and Verdun. They are
built into an area with a predetermined protection (layers of reinforced concrete) and mount long range
artillery but also layers of mid size artillery and support weapons like machine guns and Mortars. They have
their own gunners, fuel, supply, ammo but they also have a garrison of regular troops to defend them.
Basically if you have a PDC and a compact one then the garrison would be smaller but if you have one that
is spread over dozens of miles of terrain (prairie or mountains) then the ground defenders would have to
increase exponentially to provide the greater support and defense needed. One battalion might be ok to
protect a single small or primitive PDC but something that spans mountain chains would require divisions
for the same protection.
Mobile ground combat is not planetary defense. It is far too fragile. Despite the loving comments of folks
who want giant mech warriors (that a single good HEAT or APDS round would destroy). You need more
than just guns with wheels or tracks or prime movers. You need miles and miles of terrain to bury your
defenses in again from Prairie to Mountain chain. You need rock and dirt for protection and as a layer
to soak up damage. A mobile carnival would not be the same as Fort Drum or Verdun.
There is a difference between mobile forces and static fortification. Most folks cannot haul a 14 in gun
around with them in armored turrets. The mobility of ground units is great for them. But a PDC
is stationary but far better defended both by ground and materials. You cannot really pour both into
one pan and stir them together.
As we all know in dozens and dozens of scifi books the PDC is essential for planetary defense but mobile
units are needed as a reaction force or invading force to dig out the PDCs defenders. We have 100s of
years of real history on harbor and land fortifications as a guide to show that Fort Drum cannot have wheels
but are defined by their design to hold certain ground.
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STO weapons are placed i static mounts which can be armoured so that is an abstraction for placing them in fortified places on the planet. The weapon itself can then be defended by ground forces or they can be targeted by enemy bombardments from space. They can also be targeted by enemy air missions as well if I remember correctly.
PDC was removed because they were essentially space structures from a mechanical perspective and did not fit into the new mechanic of ground combat.
You can easily envision the Static mount and surrounding troops as exactly what you described from an immersive perspective.
The only change is the mechanic not the way you can imagine how it works from a role-play perspective.
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Not to mention PDCs were apparently a pain to code to around because they were ships but not actually. They were difficult to code and code around without bugs. The STO units are a lot simpler for everyone.
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My biggest issue is how their targeting works (they seem to all like to target the same thing, or random things, either overkilling in a 5 second increment or not killing in the 5 second jump when you have enough firepower to take out a ship a round which will reduce damage done to your planet).
Other than that I don't see why anyone would want PDC's back.
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Outside of role play (which I fully realize can be a major source of fun many people have with this game, myself included) the only thing we are missing out on by getting rid of PDCs is the extra free armor, land based missile launchers, and maintenance free defense. But with the changes to bombardment that get rid of the atmosphere penalty to energy weapons, a pdc wouldn’t really be that much better protected vs an orbital weapons station.
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Land based missile capability is the only thing I really miss from them, and I am sure I can build some absolutely ridiculous size 100 launchers in space to serve the same purpose. STO weapons are exactly what I wanted otherwise.
Nothing like chucking 20 size 100 ICBM's at slow speeds across the star system to intercept and then release an absolute storm of missiles upon the enemy.
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Land based missile capability is the only thing I really miss from them, and I am sure I can build some absolutely ridiculous size 100 launchers in space to serve the same purpose. STO weapons are exactly what I wanted otherwise.
Nothing like chucking 20 size 100 ICBM's at slow speeds across the star system to intercept and then release an absolute storm of missiles upon the enemy.
Current I have been trying out 500ton or less ships with no engines for planetary missiles cause you can pump them out of fighter factories.
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Land based missile capability is the only thing I really miss from them, and I am sure I can build some absolutely ridiculous size 100 launchers in space to serve the same purpose. STO weapons are exactly what I wanted otherwise.
Nothing like chucking 20 size 100 ICBM's at slow speeds across the star system to intercept and then release an absolute storm of missiles upon the enemy.
Current I have been trying out 500ton or less ships with no engines for planetary missiles cause you can pump them out of fighter factories.
Heck, even include engines. No reason why your main fighter reserve force can't chill out in the skies over Earth.
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STO weapons are placed i static mounts which can be armoured so that is an abstraction for placing them in fortified places on the planet. The weapon itself can then be defended by ground forces or they can be targeted by enemy bombardments from space. They can also be targeted by enemy air missions as well if I remember correctly.
PDC was removed because they were essentially space structures from a mechanical perspective and did not fit into the new mechanic of ground combat.
You can easily envision the Static mount and surrounding troops as exactly what you described from an immersive perspective.
The only change is the mechanic not the way you can imagine how it works from a role-play perspective.
PDCs were decided to be removed prior to the current ground combat system being decided, they weren't removed because of it.
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PDCs were decided to be removed prior to the current ground combat system being decided, they weren't removed because of it.
AND?!?
They were removed as they were essentially space structures with some special rules... Steve wanted a different type of land based warfare model. Whichever idea he came up with first... does that really matter?!?
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would matter to me. The arguments given are unsupported 'historically wise'... what I hear is that you can build basically
a huge mech with a giant gun, heavily armored and plug it into farm field 546. What defenses does it have other
than what armor it has (can't be much or would sink into planet) or shields (cannot provide enough power). A PDC
is an integrated weapon system. A system of layers that is cored by its command post. It would be like "Hey Fred!
I am glad we plopped this Mk55 Bugzapper mech here to guard this planet.... whats on the other side of that mountain
behind us?" Fred: "Don't know Zorg! You want me to go find out if anything is still there? I'll be back in a week".
PDCs are exactly what historically created coastal or land fortifications are. They are designed to be hit very hard and
survive and to hit back really hard. They layer defenses such a secondary guns and machine guns and mortars. This
is all basic history stuff anybody can read about. Again Fort Drum would be part of a defense system for Manila Bay or
game wise its a heavily armored and shielded ground based weapon with smaller weapons for close defense and even
smaller weapons to support those. Verdun or Ft Douaumont or Maginot. They are there to stop an attack from Space
and hold out on the surface. They deny the enemy a place to stand without getting pounded.
The larger the PDC the more ground area it takes up and therefore the larger the garrison needs to be to protect it. Having
PDC "El Scorpio" (book Sleeping Planet) as an example would be up the creek without sufficient ground forces to defend it
from ground attack nomatter how powerful its anti-space weapons are.
Where you put a PDC makes a difference. Into a swamp is not going to be as good as into a granite mountain range which
is why NORAD is under a mountain and not in Florida. It would require different types of designs of PDCs for different planet
surfaces.
I feel that the PDC was removed rather than remodeled because perhaps it was easier to simply make it a ground combat game
in a game. But if your sitting in a hole in the ground with a big gun and somebody drops a nuke or a big rail gun round on you
your little hole, or armor, or shield, in that relatively small Mech is going to be paste. The PDC protects mobile ground units so
they can move and fight in relative safety.
I just feel there was no either Sci-Fi or Historical reason to remove them and replace them with mobile units. Or to micromanage
a bunch of static units. There is no real integration of purpose. Mobile vs Fort. I don't know what kind of Mech could withstand
a 150mm Railgun hit from space. The darned shield generator would be torn from the Mech and plugged into a hole a few hundred
feet below the surface and the Mech would lost most or all of its resale value.
These are two different things doing 2 different jobs. Go back and look at Fort Drum again or the Maginot. They are not invincible
but the Japanese never took Drum by storm nor did the Germans fully penetrate the Maginot line, they went around. You want to
see what heavy naval gunfire can do? Look at the Japanese ships that pounded Guadalcanal or the US vs what actually was an
island converted into a single fortress in Iwo Jima.
I do not agree that removing this was a good idea just to create your own fancy ground units. Peas and Watermelon are not the
same even tho both are green.
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would matter to me. The arguments given are unsupported 'historically wise'... what I hear is that you can build basically
a huge mech with a giant gun, heavily armored and plug it into farm field 546. What defenses does it have other
than what armor it has (can't be much or would sink into planet) or shields (cannot provide enough power). A PDC
is an integrated weapon system. A system of layers that is cored by its command post. It would be like "Hey Fred!
I am glad we plopped this Mk55 Bugzapper mech here to guard this planet.... whats on the other side of that mountain
behind us?" Fred: "Don't know Zorg! You want me to go find out if anything is still there? I'll be back in a week".
PDCs are exactly what historically created coastal or land fortifications are. They are designed to be hit very hard and
survive and to hit back really hard. They layer defenses such a secondary guns and machine guns and mortars. This
is all basic history stuff anybody can read about. Again Fort Drum would be part of a defense system for Manila Bay or
game wise its a heavily armored and shielded ground based weapon with smaller weapons for close defense and even
smaller weapons to support those. Verdun or Ft Douaumont or Maginot. They are there to stop an attack from Space
and hold out on the surface. They deny the enemy a place to stand without getting pounded.
The larger the PDC the more ground area it takes up and therefore the larger the garrison needs to be to protect it. Having
PDC "El Scorpio" (book Sleeping Planet) as an example would be up the creek without sufficient ground forces to defend it
from ground attack nomatter how powerful its anti-space weapons are.
Where you put a PDC makes a difference. Into a swamp is not going to be as good as into a granite mountain range which
is why NORAD is under a mountain and not in Florida. It would require different types of designs of PDCs for different planet
surfaces.
I feel that the PDC was removed rather than remodeled because perhaps it was easier to simply make it a ground combat game
in a game. But if your sitting in a hole in the ground with a big gun and somebody drops a nuke or a big rail gun round on you
your little hole, or armor, or shield, in that relatively small Mech is going to be paste. The PDC protects mobile ground units so
they can move and fight in relative safety.
I just feel there was no either Sci-Fi or Historical reason to remove them and replace them with mobile units. Or to micromanage
a bunch of static units. There is no real integration of purpose. Mobile vs Fort. I don't know what kind of Mech could withstand
a 150mm Railgun hit from space. The darned shield generator would be torn from the Mech and plugged into a hole a few hundred
feet below the surface and the Mech would lost most or all of its resale value.
These are two different things doing 2 different jobs. Go back and look at Fort Drum again or the Maginot. They are not invincible
but the Japanese never took Drum by storm nor did the Germans fully penetrate the Maginot line, they went around. You want to
see what heavy naval gunfire can do? Look at the Japanese ships that pounded Guadalcanal or the US vs what actually was an
island converted into a single fortress in Iwo Jima.
I do not agree that removing this was a good idea just to create your own fancy ground units. Peas and Watermelon are not the
same.
You can only put the STO's on STATIC units.
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"I feel that the PDC was removed rather than remodeled because perhaps it was easier to simply make it a ground combat game
in a game."
Lol that's basically that's what steve has said. He wanted to streamline the ship code to have less edge cases. PDC were horribly buggy and it'd probably be a ton of work to implement them. You can still build orbital defenses though.
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Steve didn’t remove PDCs just so that he could change the ground combat system, he removed them because he didn’t want special rules for them. He added STO weapons in order to replace some of the lost functionality of PDCs, since he was already in the process of expending ground combat rules in general.
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I just feel there was no either Sci-Fi or Historical reason to remove
...
I do not agree that removing this was a good idea just to create your own fancy ground units. Peas and Watermelon are not the
same.
They were not removed to begin with, everything in aurora C# was coded from scratch in a different language.
We don't even know if it would be possible at all to do all the changes Steve has made to ground units and also add all the strange / broken interactions with PDCs again to the same game engine, because it's something that has never been done before.
For all we know even attempting it might have delayed the project another 6 months, or more if it ended up not working at all and Steve simply ended up releasing the game without either of them in place.
I really like the reworked ground units and don't miss PDCs at all since I feel that armed space stations and the new ground units together can fill all roles and Sci-Fi applications I can imagine ( and probably a few I can't imagine too ).
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Does not have the same basis or results. If it was taken out because it was too much trouble then so be it.
But don't defend it because you personally did not like them. I found them great and fit in quite well with any
Sci-fi series I can think of. I have no problem with Steve doing what he wants in the game. Its his game and
I am deeply grateful for all his work and its a blast. If you don't like them just say so in your response. The
arguments given are simply 'I want ground combat'. So do I but we are discussing 2 completely different cans
of beans here.
and what the heck is a STO... I have not found a key yet for all the new terms. Thanks!
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Surface to Orbit Weapon.
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and what the heck is a STO... I have not found a key yet for all the new terms. Thanks!
STO is the same as a PDC but in the new system. It's anti space weapons put on a static ground emplacement that can be used to fire on enemy ships.
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I will look at that but am wary if its simply plop a gun turret from New Jersey in a field without all the back up and
culmination of all the other parts that make up a battleship. I will see what Zorg thinks of this..... thanks!
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I will look at that but am wary if its simply plop a gun turret from New Jersey in a field
Oh there are plenty of cases where countries did just that. I do wonder how for example a turret with armor reacts when used as a weapon for an STO with its own armor stat though.
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I do wonder how for example a turret with armor reacts when used as a weapon for an STO with its own armor stat though.
I just checked armour and they only increase the weight and cost of STO's. HP and armour are unaffected.
STO's are affected by turret tracking speed (I just found out). STO's will use the lower of racial tracking speed or the turret tracking speed. If the PD box is ticked then they use the lower of 4x racial tracking speed or turret tracking speed. Because turrets are larger than the base weapon you can't gain any benefit from using a turret vs just using the weapon alone.
I suspect that Steve didn't consider the possibility of using turrets when he coded STO's.
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Turrets are not larger than the base weapon. 0 km/s tracking speed with four 25 ton gauss cannons yields a turret of 100 tons. It is only bigger if you add tracking speed. So turrets are the only way to make an STO w/ more than one weapon system.
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...snip...
Where you put a PDC makes a difference. Into a swamp is not going to be as good as into a granite mountain range which
is why NORAD is under a mountain and not in Florida. It would require different types of designs of PDCs for different planet
surfaces.
I feel that the PDC was removed rather than remodeled because perhaps it was easier to simply make it a ground combat game
in a game. But if your sitting in a hole in the ground with a big gun and somebody drops a nuke or a big rail gun round on you
your little hole, or armor, or shield, in that relatively small Mech is going to be paste. The PDC protects mobile ground units so
they can move and fight in relative safety.
I just feel there was no either Sci-Fi or Historical reason to remove them and replace them with mobile units. Or to micromanage
a bunch of static units.
...snip...
These are two different things doing 2 different jobs. Go back and look at Fort Drum again or the Maginot. They are not invincible
but the Japanese never took Drum by storm nor did the Germans fully penetrate the Maginot line, they went around. You want to
see what heavy naval gunfire can do? Look at the Japanese ships that pounded Guadalcanal or the US vs what actually was an
island converted into a single fortress in Iwo Jima.
...snip
Some of these things are modelled..
Each planet has a 'dominant terrain' that allows a bonus to the fortification rating of static units. The base is 6 with Jungle Mountains providing a 3x multiplier.
That's 18 Fortification, which I think is an orbital to hit ratio of 144 to 1.
Some planet bodies don't have mountains after all... Or don't have enough big enough ones. (Earth is Forested after all)
There's also not a lot of micromanagement.
You specify the size and how many guns each formation has. You build the guns in formations.
Then you move those formations onto whatever youre trying to protect.
That formation can be one gun in size or 2,000 guns. If you want it to have a named commander and bonuses to its attack and defense you'll need to add a HQ somewhere.
Now Static ground formations are vulnerable to attack from the ground...
So you'll need to design a formation to protect it...
See where I'm going with that?
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Hey you can always just stick a ship with no engines on a planet and call it a PDC.
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I will look at that but am wary if its simply plop a gun turret from New Jersey in a field
Oh there are plenty of cases where countries did just that. I do wonder how for example a turret with armor reacts when used as a weapon for an STO with its own armor stat though.
uh...yeah... pearl harbor got Arizona's guns and a couple turrets.... but if you build something with NO foundation good luck pulling it up out of the ground, or loading it, or firing it, or aiming it, or turning it.. if you have a foundation then you have the infrastructure of a harbor defense which is the Terrestrial version of a PDC
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...snip...
Where you put a PDC makes a difference. Into a swamp is not going to be as good as into a granite mountain range which
is why NORAD is under a mountain and not in Florida. It would require different types of designs of PDCs for different planet
surfaces.
I feel that the PDC was removed rather than remodeled because perhaps it was easier to simply make it a ground combat game
in a game. But if your sitting in a hole in the ground with a big gun and somebody drops a nuke or a big rail gun round on you
your little hole, or armor, or shield, in that relatively small Mech is going to be paste. The PDC protects mobile ground units so
they can move and fight in relative safety.
I just feel there was no either Sci-Fi or Historical reason to remove them and replace them with mobile units. Or to micromanage
a bunch of static units.
...snip...
These are two different things doing 2 different jobs. Go back and look at Fort Drum again or the Maginot. They are not invincible
but the Japanese never took Drum by storm nor did the Germans fully penetrate the Maginot line, they went around. You want to
see what heavy naval gunfire can do? Look at the Japanese ships that pounded Guadalcanal or the US vs what actually was an
island converted into a single fortress in Iwo Jima.
...snip
Some of these things are modelled..
Each planet has a 'dominant terrain' that allows a bonus to the fortification rating of static units. The base is 6 with Jungle Mountains providing a 3x multiplier.
That's 18 Fortification, which I think is an orbital to hit ratio of 144 to 1.
Some planet bodies don't have mountains after all... Or don't have enough big enough ones. (Earth is Forested after all)
There's also not a lot of micromanagement.
You specify the size and how many guns each formation has. You build the guns in formations.
Then you move those formations onto whatever youre trying to protect.
That formation can be one gun in size or 2,000 guns. If you want it to have a named commander and bonuses to its attack and defense you'll need to add a HQ somewhere.
Now Static ground formations are vulnerable to attack from the ground...
So you'll need to design a formation to protect it...
See where I'm going with that?
You are creating reasons that don't seem to be based on the game design. Folks were saying that Steve just did not want them. That is not the same as removing them and replacing them with something else. Besides many of your arguments are kinda circular and not based upon physical parameters.
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To summarize, PDCs weren't removed because nobody wanted them, or because they weren't 'spacey' enough. PDCs were removed becasue they broke the game, and were a giant pain in the ass.
And they were replaced with something -- they were replaced with Surface-to-Orbit weaponry ground units, and orbital fortresses. And it's very easy to pretend that what Aurora calls orbital forts are actually ground installations. . . I know, I've been doing it for years with shipyards.
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For further information, I refer the honourable member to my statement of Tenth November, Two Thousand and Seventeen.
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=9679.msg105060#msg105060 (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=9679.msg105060#msg105060)
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It is my suggestion.. If you don't like it you can ignore it.. Giving me multiple and contradictory answers
does not help at all. If Steve does not want them thats fine. I don't play 'imagine' with one thing for it
to be another.
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Hey you can always just stick a ship with no engines on a planet and call it a PDC.
Literally exactly what the old PDC's were, except for the free armour, and the ability to ship them around in components. That I miss actually .
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Mobile ground combat is not planetary defense. It is far too fragile. Despite the loving comments of folks
who want giant mech warriors (that a single good HEAT or APDS round would destroy). You need more
than just guns with wheels or tracks or prime movers. You need miles and miles of terrain to bury your
defenses in again from Prairie to Mountain chain. You need rock and dirt for protection and as a layer
to soak up damage. A mobile carnival would not be the same as Fort Drum or Verdun.
There is a difference between mobile forces and static fortification. Most folks cannot haul a 14 in gun
around with them in armored turrets. The mobility of ground units is great for them. But a PDC
is stationary but far better defended both by ground and materials. You cannot really pour both into
one pan and stir them together.
As we all know in dozens and dozens of scifi books the PDC is essential for planetary defense but mobile
units are needed as a reaction force or invading force to dig out the PDCs defenders. We have 100s of
years of real history on harbor and land fortifications as a guide to show that Fort Drum cannot have wheels
but are defined by their design to hold certain ground.
I'm not trying to dismiss your suggestion for PDC's, but I just want to point out that what you are describing here is exactly what static ground forces are supposed to represent. The new system is not just about placing mechs in a field, but if you create a formation out of static units, you essentially have a PDC. Static units have a higher maximum fortification value, which means that over time and with proper contruction support, they can become very defensible and hard to attack. This is not just about slapping extra layers of armor on them, but also about taking advantage of the terrain of the planet when building fortifications.
The new system does not give you mobile forces instead of static fortifications. It has both, and you will likely need to use both in order to defend your planets properly.
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PDC were removed by Steve as HE found them to not work the way he originally wanted them to work from a mechanical perspective. In VB6 they were essentially a space structure from a mechanical perspective and was thus poorly integrated into the ground game. Ground unit could not defend them unless they were inside them for example and the PDC was completely detached from the ground fighting.
In C# then STO weapons in static mounts is sort of weapons mounted into the ground in a base. Each weapons is mounted into its own base. They often are part of a formation that can be AA weapons and even some infantry to defend them.
There is nothing from an immersive perspective that a PDC does that you can't get from the new mechanic. It is just a slight change how these weapons integrate into the game. I don't see the point in even trying to use real world analogue to either PDC or the current implementations and they both do the same thing just with slightly different mechanics.
So they were not really removed as replaced with a different mechanic, one that is more coherent as a singe planetary defence mechanic.
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It is my suggestion.. If you don't like it you can ignore it.. Giving me multiple and contradictory answers
does not help at all. If Steve does not want them thats fine. I don't play 'imagine' with one thing for it
to be another.
Here is the unambiguous word from Steve himself:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg105772#msg105772
They will be replaced by a much more detailed ground-combat system, including ground units capable of engaging ships within energy range of the planet.
PDC's required exceptions to rules, a big focus of C# was making all entities obey all rules rather than giving them exceptions in order to exist. It was an exception to the rules for ships to exist in atmosphere, without engines, with more armor, with special FC, when they are supposed to be PDC's and not ships.
Everything a PDC could do, ground units can do, and more, its what some of the types were explicitly made to do, replace the PDC's usefulness with ground units to do the same things.
If you want to engage units in space, you want units with an STO component. If you want to defend against missiles, you want a units with a CIWS component. If you want a place to store troops safe from orbital attack, they do that on their own now with fortification.
If you want an all in one "PDC like" unit, you have two options, ship or station, built to be an orbital weapons platform. This will not subject you to the beam's in atmosphere penalties, nor will any loaded troops defend the surface as they will be in orbit, since both of those were special exceptions for ships that were not ships(PDC's).
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Wow... I just cannot seem to make folks understand I liked PDCs. I was happy with them. The concept now
is a work around, not a solution. Again if you don't like my suggestion why do some of you keep trying to
show me how great the new system is compared to the old? There are multiple reasons I prefer the entire
entity of PDC over components scattered on the surface. From a Sci Fi or Historical Earth perspective the
new way is just a work around and more complex. There is a difference from having Fort Apache than having
hundreds of wooden poles each with a soldier on them scattered around a field. Again... if you do not like
my suggestion then don't respond. Quit being so defensive. I am not attacking Steve's work. Its the concept
that I find hard to except, but that is my issue.
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To be fair, you did post this on a public forum, they have every right to respond with their own opinions, if you give an opinion so can they thats how it works.
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I do miss planetary missile Launchers, but haven't really had a chance to explore alternative options.
Static unit formations with Construction etc seem to be a good analogue for bases
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Related to the PDC discussion, I have noticed that predesigned ship classes will include stationary military bases. Shove some ground support weapons and marines on that and you have yourself a PDC.
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I think this suggestion has come down to this:... I want to play Football with an oblong ball...... you want to play Football but with a round ball.
By the way...my Football is better..... ;D
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Simple solution here: Wait for Quasar4x ;D
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I think this suggestion has come down to this:... I want to play Football with an oblong ball...... you want to play Football but with a round ball.
By the way...my Football is better..... ;D
Not sure that is a good analogue as the old PDC was a different mechanic for different ground combat game-play. The old ground combat mechanic of VB6 was very different from the one in C#.
PDC was a completely self contained entity and did not interact with the ground combat at all. It was essentially a space structure with some special rules... in my opinion they made little sense from a logic perspective.
A Static STO mount where you have used construction units to fortify them to max fortification levels make very logical sense as a planetary weapon from an immersive perspective.
Building some arbitrary box with armour and then add beam weapons and some troops does not... that is more like a space station and not a ground facility. You still can do that by the way... you just don't get the extra range on the beam controls.
I simply don't agree with your original statement in the OP... it makes zero sense to use the PDC as a concept from VB6 in C#.
Now... I do think there should be some manner of differences between defending and attacking forces in C# aurora, but Steve have at least acknowledged this issue so we might see some changes to this eventually.
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I think this suggestion has come down to this:... I want to play Football with an oblong ball...... you want to play Football but with a round ball.
By the way...my Football is better..... ;D
What's strange is that what you describe as your ideal of a PDC is far better modeled by C#'s ground forces than it ever was VB6's PDCs.
For example, in C#, you can have:
DHQ North American Aerospace Defence (NORAD), a fortified headquarters complex dug into Cheyenne Mountain, the centerpiece of an elaborate orbital defense network
with attachments
3rd Orbital Defense Brigade, a series of enormous lasers buried deep beneath classified locations in the Rocky Mountains, using concealed firing shutters.
56th, 57th, and 58th Garrison Regiments, each consisting of innumerable pillboxes, hidden heavy weapons, and anti-air emplacements
22nd Area Defense Regiment, a supporting formation of heavy anti-air weaponry and emplaced artillery
And the way that actually plays out in the game is as a well defended and dug in deterrent to any assault whether via ground or space, since the STO weapons are hidden
Whereas in VB6 you have an easily-identified immobile ship called NORAD which will inevitably be nuked out of existence or obliterated easily by meson fire. In no gameplay sense does it resemble, for example, the PDCs visualized in the Starfire book Crusade.
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Having random turrets in fields is actually sci-fi.
Isn't that like, a handful of episodes from Stargate? They find a race that's super advanced, and with like 8 turrets they can cover their whole planet and take down any ship that shows up in range.
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Having random turrets in fields is actually sci-fi.
Isn't that like, a handful of episodes from Stargate? They find a race that's super advanced, and with like 8 turrets they can cover their whole planet and take down any ship that shows up in range.
The Tollan Ion Cannon :)
https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Ion_cannon
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El Scorpio Planetary Defense Center in Southwest US (book: Sleeping Planet). I shall nail my flag to my mainmast..
Do starships have mainmasts? I am amazed at the amount of feedback on this. I am sure I will find eventually
that the new systems does replace the PDC but they are alot easier to design and it takes alot of micromanagement
its seems for the new ground unit based units. Time will tell for me. Ah flags... I forgot the Monitor and Merrimac
(Tour of the Merrimac series). They have flags in space with lights shining on them.
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You know... I've been thinking it over... Why not both? I'd like to also be able to make "Hive City" type places for the full 40k experience some day.
https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Hive_City (https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Hive_City)
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You know... I've been thinking it over... Why not both?
Programming time.
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Maybe sometime in 2025 we might get it.
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I liked PDCs.
That said, it's Steve's game and I support his decision. Mostly because I'm an American and "freedom & sovereign rights" is kinda our whole thing.
Now with that said, PDCs did some things that STOs don't, and I feel this thread is as good as any to put my 2 cents in on them.
- PDCs could be used to make armoured STO missile systems, and with the special PDC missile launchers you could get a better fire rate than a ship.
- With a pair 2,500 Ton Passives, you could make an Armored DSTS w/ barracks to defend it.
- Maintenance Modules and Terraforming Modules could be used to make protected terraforming and maintenance areas.
- In C#, if they were re-added, you could make protected Ordinance Transfer Stations and Re-fueling Stations. Also, with the Beam Changes, PDC B-FCS would gain greater relevance.
- PDCs with hangars could store colonists in cryo, with the collateral damage rules in C# this is could be even more useful than it was in VB6.
I like STOs, and I think they're a pretty good solution, but IMO I don't think they are a replacement for PDCs. However, I think that the inclusion of missile STOs and Installations with the above functions would be a workable alternative. The ability to design them was nice though...
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Wow... I just cannot seem to make folks understand I liked PDCs. I was happy with them. The concept now
is a work around, not a solution.
PDCs was the workaround solution.
What we got now is the realistic solution that makes sense in how a planetary defense would actually work, not PDC spaceships that get free armor due to being beneath mountains and don't require maintenance unlike all other spaceships.
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PDCs on the ground would have support from any civilian population in the area like they do now. Since
you don't have to worry about a vacuum or air pressure (gas and biologicals being the exception). Once
created you only need maintenance teams and a small engineering force. PDCs in hostile environments
would be like many smaller ships fortified into the terrain.
To my mind some of this does not really makes sense. Folks complain about 'armor' being mountains
and heck yes that is true, it IS armor. The new system makes perfect sense for ground combat but you still
cannot get me to agree towing a trailer with a 20cm laser into a piece of land and plugging it into a mobile
power source is a fortification. I don't care how much armor you put on that RV its still dead from blast or
concussion. Modern forts consisted of reinforced concrete and steel. They can withstand an amazing
amount of punishment. having 6 'engineer' vehicles to dig pits and make sandbags for towed weapons
is pretty ludicrous when called armor. Nor can you lay armor plate in pieces like Robbie the Robot in Forbidden
Planet.
Again spend about an hour or two online researching forts like the Metz forts vs Patton, the Verdun forts
that even when captured were horrendous to try and take back. Fort Drum is my favorite. It is the perfect
example of a PDC in historical warfare. The Maginot Line... Cheyenne Mountain, which is a fortified command
center.
I don't care what sized engineer vehicle you have its nothing like having reinforced concrete and 9,000 feet
of mountain around you. and for desert all the buildings inside are mounted on giant springs to roll with any
blast short of destruction.
A PDC would be much more like a group of heavily (depending on armor and terrain) armored and armed
spaceships than 'static' weapons. Especially so when you think of all the cables and antennas to connect
all these surface defenses together and how fragile those connections are (look at WW1 and 2 effects of
bombardments), or even you own troops, destroying the surface infrastructure. And burying it 20 feet down
still would not be enough as has been mentioned in report after report.
Also surface launched missiles still should exist but they would have to be 2 stage with the lower stage the
booster for getting out of the atmosphere and the upper stage the actual missiles. The Russians use alot
of mobile missile ICBM,IRBM,Tactical launchers and so do we but we have (or had) alot of fortified underground
missile launchers designed to survive a near miss.
Making the fort piece by piece as suggested would be fun but is alot of micromanagement and that it really
cannot take into effect real terrain and different circumstances on each planet. Just like folks say a PDC is
just a ship on the ground but plugging the same static units in one place is not like having them in another.
I am still learning this all over again and with 1.8 I seem to have less crashes so I am getting further along.
I imagine I will use the included static designs for making 'defenses' on a planet but I know myself they would
be nothing like you would need in 'real' life and would be incredibly fragile. Again, Fort Drum, concrete battleship.
Never taken by force from US in Manila Bay nor knocked out by heavy artillery and bombings. Retaking it back
required US forces to pour a napalm like fluid into it with demo charges and kill the Japanese defenders but the
fort, with some repairs, would have been usable again.
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/fort-drum-the-concrete-battleship.html
I will try and make this my last response.
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And a simple KKW takes out your reinforced concrete, your mountain, and a good chunk of the landscape...
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you made we want to respond, didn't you..... yes... and it toasts first all those cute armored
RVs sitting on the surface. Here is just 45 year old tech with the Sprint ABM. It travels at
Mach 10 as well, in the other direction. It is not a direct hit weapon but carries a nuke to
destroy ICBMs. The shock of the nuke in the path of the KKW weapons would destroy or
throw them out of trajectory making them tumble. I understand they are working or have
stuff even better now. For every offense there is a defense then from a new defense there is a
new offense. Current US testing on KKWs done show about an impact of about 10 tons of
TNT. You would need more than a few to dig down into the mountain and since it is shooting
back its likely you will lose your launching vehicle from space based defense weapons as well
(OWPs) I always loved this video which after a fraction of a second goes at normal speed. And also
(ta da) it is fired from a hardened bunker.
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A STATIC mount can be a bunker... you then use construction units to "fortify" it into the ground making it very difficult to knock out. Static mounts also can have varying armouring options on top of this, making them more or less difficult to knock out with heavy weapons.
It has the same principal effect as what you talk about, it just use a different mechanic. From an immersive perspective that IS the same.
PDC as they were in VB6 is not necessary nor wanted as their mechanic don't fit with the new system.
I understand that you liked PDC from VB6... me personally think that the new system in C# portray all the things you describe even better from an immersive point of view. I can't see any immersive description you have given that can't be replicated and used with the new mechanic.
As for missiles... I would also like to see ground launched missiles at some point. For now I'm OK with how it currently is. I assume Steve left it as is mostly for balance reasons.
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My suggestion was to put them back.... not take them out which is a 'done deal' anyhow. I am only
responding to some very odd responses. I am glad you like the new system. It is not the same tho.
This is apples and oranges. I don't care if you build a bunker 12 feet down with your magical engineer
vehicle (joke). An integrated defense system is built into an area. There is NOTHING mobile that
could withstand an attack from space. What has been done is to take one system some folks did not
like because they feel it is illogical and replace with a system that is just as illogical but easier and more
fun to use. Calling something 'static' and slathering it will armor plate is ludicrous. You design something
from the beginning for certain perimeters and then build it.. Whatever is in the new system is an RV
with armor and that is all. It is a simple work around to the same problem that existed to begin with.
Its just my belief folks have turned the ground system into a total overarching system and doing the
same with the problem with PDCs by simply using another system to try and work it into.
You can easily visualize this... a huge armored turret built out in the field somewhere and tech coming
out to cover it with more plates of armor and ceramics... It is a vivid reminder of D and D systems where
visually the character is carrying a 15 foot long sword that must weigh a 1000 pounds and insisting he
won't tip over or sink into the ground because....just because.
Technicians running from bunker to bunker with extension cords to power stuff and water hoses and
sewage lines and telephone cable because its hard to jam a cabled communication system. All that
because there is no infrastructure that has to be built for these to interlock fire and command and control.
I plop 10 anti-space lasers in a field and that is my planetary defense... and I pour concrete around them
and put more armor plate on them but there still is no infrastructure.
What this system has become is simply small to big field fortifications, nothing more. I keep seeing the
argument that the PDC system did not work and was a bad idea. The opposite is true of calling what
are FIELD fortification (yes they armor and cement those too) a workaround just as the PDC was. The
infrastructure for either are completely different
The new system is simply a work around to make it part of the surface forces using surface forces parameters.
An apple is not an orange. The replies are simply other folks justifying their choice over a 2nd choice and that
is all. Instead of making planetary defense like a ship the new way is to make it a really big immobile tank or Mg
nest.
The ONLY argument against PDCs that is real is that they were unliked and were a workaround that needed to be removed.
I don't understand all the subtle hostility or need to explain something to me. It was just my suggestion and I
think I have very valid supporting logic to my suggestion. If folks don't agree thats all they have to do or not
respond at all. I am happy with my suggestion myself and if other folks are not so be it. move on but don't
keep telling me I am wrong, I just have a different view.
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The video you posted earlier is the perfect example of a static, surface to orbit ground unit that has been fortified. If you can't understand that, it's your problem. In this case, people keep telling you you are wrong because you are.
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wow...but we don't have missiles launched from 'static' ground forces now..... by the way I am right.
You say the Sprint as a surface weapon that is fortified... the truth is it is a missile SYSTEM that is
fortified.....its part of an infrastructure of radar, command and control, support forces, maintenance.
There is no infrastructure for the new system... you plop down your gun then cover it with dirt, concrete,
and metal... which is how you build something backwards. If you want it stronger you take your magic
construction vehicle and pile more dirt, concrete, and metal on it.
I swear I am getting deja vu and thinking I am on a Paradox forum.
Don't like my suggestion then don't respond.... I continue to see folks afraid of a counter viewpoint.
Not the PDC/Static but that folks like and want something different. My suggestion makes no
difference to you in your game play nor does it in mine. relax.
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its part of an infrastructure of radar, command and control, support forces, maintenance.
Radar and C&C are assumed to be part of the weapon, support and maintenance (supply) you provide yourself.
Nobody here is afraid of a counter viewpoint, the way you write your posts just makes it seem like you are incapable of understanding the simple concepts we are presenting to you.
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I don't understand what is magical about a construction or engineering company building a Static weapon into a fortified bunker complex. It is the same thing just with different overall mechanics. Sure... there is no cost involved in terms of resources or wealth for constructing fortifications, but that could easily be changed if Steve felt it would make much of a difference.
The new static STO weapons can be imagined in exactly the same way so no there are no reason to also include PDC as that would give two mechanics doing exactly the same thing. PDCs as they were in VB6 will never get added... not saying that Steve might invent some new mechanic to improve on STO or similar in the future though. But PDCs will not return in the way they were in VB6.
There are NO immersive explanation you can through out that fit a PDC explanation that can't also fit the way it works now equally well.
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Look plasticpanzer, we're now on page 4 of what's become a circular argument.
So far, you've been presented the reasons why
- PDCs were an issue in the first place
- That the developer chose to remove them on purpose
- Suggestions for how to replace them in the system as it currently is
- Arguments for why the current system is better.
You can argue all you want on the third and fourth points, but the first two are set in stone. Steve chose not to code PDCs into C# Aurora. It's not a case of flipping a switch and making some bug fixes to get them working - they literally do not exist in the code of this version.
So here's the last thing you can do, assuming you haven't done it so far:
Post your request to add PDCs to the game in the C# Suggestions thread (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10640.300) and sit back and wait to see when or if Steve ever does anything with it.
That's it. You can argue endlessly with everyone if it amuses you, but stubbornly repeating that you want PDCs over and over again in response to people isn't going to improve your chances of getting PDCs added to the game.
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The only real valid point so far in this thread is about missiles not being able to fire from the ground anymore... which really have nothing to do with if we have PDC or not.
Steve did not include ground to space missiles for a reason and this has been argued before. The lack of being able to shoot missiles from STO position have nothing to do with the discussion of PDC versus STO, it is a completely different matter entirely.
Not including missiles from STO might actually be as simple as not having time to code it as it would work a bit differently and require a different interface. STO are basically automated and you don't directly control what they shoot at. I don't think Steve have made any exhaustive explanation for why he did not include missiles as a ground to space weapon.
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The only real valid point so far in this thread is about missiles not being able to fire from the ground anymore... which really have nothing to do with if we have PDC or not.
Steve did not include ground to space missiles for a reason and this has been argued before. The lack of being able to shoot missiles from STO position have nothing to do with the discussion of PDC versus STO, it is a completely different matter entirely.
Not including missiles from STO might actually be as simple as not having time to code it as it would work a bit differently and require a different interface. STO are basically automated and you don't directly control what they shoot at. I don't think Steve have made any exhaustive explanation for why he did not include missiles as a ground to space weapon.
Yeah. I hope it's just either an oversight or a question of coding time that they are not in. If you can have turrets mounted on static units, then you should be able to mount missiles launchers as well - unless that would break the logic of the automatic combat of STO's. Until then we'll have to make orbital fortresses.
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The only real valid point so far in this thread is about missiles not being able to fire from the ground anymore... which really have nothing to do with if we have PDC or not.
Steve did not include ground to space missiles for a reason and this has been argued before. The lack of being able to shoot missiles from STO position have nothing to do with the discussion of PDC versus STO, it is a completely different matter entirely.
Not including missiles from STO might actually be as simple as not having time to code it as it would work a bit differently and require a different interface. STO are basically automated and you don't directly control what they shoot at. I don't think Steve have made any exhaustive explanation for why he did not include missiles as a ground to space weapon.
Yeah. I hope it's just either an oversight or a question of coding time that they are not in. If you can have turrets mounted on static units, then you should be able to mount missiles launchers as well - unless that would break the logic of the automatic combat of STO's. Until then we'll have to make orbital fortresses.
The issue here, I think, is exactly the automated combat. If you had missiles.... who is the sto shooting at? Should it start shooting at a target 80 millions km away? How should it even differentiate who to shoot at?
If a tiny enemy scout gets at 80 millions km... should my 4618155 missile equipped STO all shoot at him together? I'm sure you can see how that would be a big problem.
Not to mention you should build the missiles, equip the missiles, carry the missiles etc. Imo it's simply not what Steve wanted for Surface to Orbit weapons. I think what we have now works. If you want missiles, which are not a always-shoot weapon but rather a weapon where the player chooses when to shoot and who to shoot, you build missile bases.
And by the way, nothing prevents you from roleplaying that your missile bases are on the ground... since Aurora conceptually has a planet as a single point, with all installations in the same place.
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It seems pretty easy to have STO missile units. Just make them work like logistics forces - they get consumed by firing. The cost of a STO missile force is based on the cost of a missile, in the same way that the cost of a STO laser force is based on the cost of the laser. And automated firing only when a force gets to planetary orbit, but you can manually fire sooner.
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its part of an infrastructure of radar, command and control, support forces, maintenance.
Radar and C&C are assumed to be part of the weapon, support and maintenance (supply) you provide yourself.
Nobody here is afraid of a counter viewpoint, the way you write your posts just makes it seem like you are incapable of understanding the simple concepts we are presenting to you.
Oh I am quite able to understand a valid, logical argument. What i hate are cliques of people thinking a poster is attacking their game system. If you
don't understand the difference between the old system and the new than I sure can't help you.
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Look plasticpanzer, we're now on page 4 of what's become a circular argument.
So far, you've been presented the reasons why
- PDCs were an issue in the first place
- That the developer chose to remove them on purpose
- Suggestions for how to replace them in the system as it currently is
- Arguments for why the current system is better.
You can argue all you want on the third and fourth points, but the first two are set in stone. Steve chose not to code PDCs into C# Aurora. It's not a case of flipping a switch and making some bug fixes to get them working - they literally do not exist in the code of this version.
So here's the last thing you can do, assuming you haven't done it so far:
Post your request to add PDCs to the game in the C# Suggestions thread (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10640.300) and sit back and wait to see when or if Steve ever does anything with it.
That's it. You can argue endlessly with everyone if it amuses you, but stubbornly repeating that you want PDCs over and over again in response to people isn't going to improve your chances of getting PDCs added to the game.
This is in the suggestion section. The only problem is with people walking into this conversation is they will not understand it is JUST a suggestion. I don't know why folks become so possessive and hostile when they think somebody is attacking somebody's game system. I am not attacking it. The reason I argue is the answers given by folks that counter my SUGGESTION are full of holes and can't hold water. EITHER system of PDC or ground defenses is a work around. You just have more fun building your own units and folks who play this game love micromanagement and so do I. You and other folks seem to be the one creating this circular argument that I respond to only because of a) not so subtle hostile/snarky responses b) giving reasons that make no logical sense or are totally unrealistic c) you don't like my suggestion. If you don't like it don't respond....because it was just a SUGGESTION. The decision was already made.... and I responded with my SUGGESTION.
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Look plasticpanzer, we're now on page 4 of what's become a circular argument.
So far, you've been presented the reasons why
- PDCs were an issue in the first place
- That the developer chose to remove them on purpose
- Suggestions for how to replace them in the system as it currently is
- Arguments for why the current system is better.
You can argue all you want on the third and fourth points, but the first two are set in stone. Steve chose not to code PDCs into C# Aurora. It's not a case of flipping a switch and making some bug fixes to get them working - they literally do not exist in the code of this version.
So here's the last thing you can do, assuming you haven't done it so far:
Post your request to add PDCs to the game in the C# Suggestions thread (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10640.300) and sit back and wait to see when or if Steve ever does anything with it.
That's it. You can argue endlessly with everyone if it amuses you, but stubbornly repeating that you want PDCs over and over again in response to people isn't going to improve your chances of getting PDCs added to the game.
This is in the suggestion section. The only problem is with people walking into this conversation is they will not understand it is JUST a suggestion. I don't know why folks become so possessive and hostile when they think somebody is attacking somebody's game system. I am not attacking it. The reason I argue is the answers given by folks that counter my SUGGESTION are full of holes and can't hold water. EITHER system of PDC or ground defenses is a work around. You just have more fun building your own units and folks who play this game love micromanagement and so do I. You and other folks seem to be the one creating this circular argument that I respond to only because of a) not so subtle hostile/snarky responses b) giving reasons that make no logical sense or are totally unrealistic c) you don't like my suggestion. If you don't like it don't respond....because it was just a SUGGESTION. The decision was already made.... and I responded with my SUGGESTION.
Nope... we say it is bad idea to reintroduce the old PDC mechanic and we would not want Steve to waste his energy on that instead of something else, especially when there already is a mechanic that represent what the old PDC did already. We simply don't see the point in such unnecessary work. I would rather that Steve spend time on other features such as diplomacy, Ship administration, QoL improvements or just new mechanics instead, Steves time is limited.
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I hardly think my suggestion carried any weight to begin with. I never said he MUST change back. I would
like to see them set up differently. At the moment I am tinkering with a planetary fort and it actually to me
seems kinda wimpy and unsupported but that is just me.
What I don't understand is the knee jerk response to my simple post. Steve is not under attack nor is the
game. As I repeatedly said it was a SUGGESTION. Why is that so hard to compute?
Feels like Deja Vu all over again...
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Static Emplacements should get a a bonus, not a penalty, to armour. Don't mind the "to be hit" penalty they receive, but armour being twice as effective on a vehicle compared to an emplacement just seems wonky. It's like a .5 instead of a x5 multiplier is being applied...
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I hardly think my suggestion carried any weight to begin with. I never said he MUST change back. I would
like to see them set up differently. At the moment I am tinkering with a planetary fort and it actually to me
seems kinda wimpy and unsupported but that is just me.
What I don't understand is the knee jerk response to my simple post. Steve is not under attack nor is the
game. As I repeatedly said it was a SUGGESTION. Why is that so hard to compute?
Feels like Deja Vu all over again...
Likewise we did not say he MUST avoid adding PDC back.
But if you create your own thread for a suggestion you will have to accept that people will voice their opinion on that issue... I created a suggestion thread about alternative jump drive mechanic which allot of people had issues with... that resulted in some pretty good discussion in my opinion. I did not expect everyone to agree with me on my opinion and arguing something can be quite healthy for both sides of an argument... ;)
The important thing is to not take things personally... it is difficult to objectively say an opinion (unless it is a fact) is wrong in many cases.
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Haven't read the thread but i'll say my piece. Given how STOs work the only valid argument I can see here is that STOs do not have missiles.
However the missile PDC role can very much be substituted with defence satellites. In my case I have 100s of 400t "fighters" with 10 AMM tubes each. Much like the missile PDCs of old I can turn my planet into a no-fun zone. I could also put heavier missiles on these to get anti-ship abilities and since they are fighters you can build hundreds of them and just set their officer priority to minimum. You need to move them to a planet with no installations? Use a carrier - much easier to move stuff en masse compared to the janky PDC component system (which actually needed some form of construction to assemble anyway).
PDCs are important in VB6 because maintenance facilities do not prevent the maint clock ticking on ships so you needed hangars on the ground. However the new maintenance mechanics allow you to just keep stuff in orbit and on the ground to a much larger scale than before - completely superceding any perceived armour benefits that PDCs have.
Remember that in order to bust STOs from outside their weapons range the only guarantee is to use highly radioactive missile that will render the planet useless for years if your lucky. And any defence satellites will shut that down anyways.
The fortification and terrain bonuses of STOs also render the +5 free armour of PDCs completely moot since now your defensive beam weapons have actual evasion as opposed to just tankiness.
IMO the lack of PDCs has not removed any sort of depth from the game thanks to the many new features that frankly replaced their uses.
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Haven't read the thread but i'll say my piece. Given how STOs work the only valid argument I can see here is that STOs do not have missiles.
However the missile PDC role can very much be substituted with defence satellites. . .
Yes. That was the deliberate design decision made for C# Aurora.