Aurora 4x
C# Fiction => Steve's Fiction => The Twelve Colonies => Topic started by: Steve Walmsley on February 01, 2022, 08:49:29 AM
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Please put any comments in this thread.
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New Steve AAR surely means v2.0 is nearly here! For sure this time!!
Personally I hope once this story is finished and 2.0 is out we will have a return to the NATO vs Soviet with multiple player races, it has been too long since we had a Steve AAR with multiple player races and I don't think we've had one in C# yet. Of course I will not complain about what we are now receiving! ;D
One question though:
All spoilers active except Rakhas.
It is kind of a curious choice of spoiler to turn off since their effect on the game is so little and basically Precursors without the ships in practical terms. Actually, I wonder if they feel too redundant to you and perhaps could use a refresh in some future update?
Interesting ship designs. The titular Galactica class looks very formidable, at first I had difficulty realizing how you could fit so much hangar space and all those weapons before I realized that you won't need magazines in this campaign. ;) The Valkyrie class seems likely to have a troubled history, with such a weak maintenance life plus the need to provide MSP to maintain its complement it will likely have difficulty on true deep space missions, though maybe the support from the Lokis will prove adequate to avoid any major issues.
Small note, the Atlas class Tug does not have its name bolded, missed it on the first scroll through and wondered why you had stations but no tugs. Also don't see them in the starting fleet list. ???
I'm very interested to see how the Colonial Marines will work out for you, since you are using ~5,000-ton battalions as your base unit type but have also doubled ground commander generation in v2.0. The thing to look for is whether such a formation size will work while building up a large enough army to actually invade planets, and having enough commanders for every formation.
Looks like the Mortis class are the first look at the revamped Raiders. So far they do not seem too threatening although having such quick fighters even at gas-core tech probably has a lot to do with that, but I expect that is by design and we will see more force if and when they decide to make a more significant incursion. Looking forward to seeing how this goes!
In the meantime we have the promise of hostilities with the Stave... to be honest as much as I look forward to fleet battle action in a Steve AAR, this is one of my gripes with the diplomatic system as it feels too inflexible and the AI too simplistic and unyielding, so usually if you encounter a race within a few jumps (less than 3 or 4) it is nearly guaranteed that there will be hostilities, regardless of militancy or xenophobia, just because the aliens will claim every system in a certain radius of their home system and refuse to be flexible if, say, Sol happens to be one of those systems. it would be nice to see some manner of establishing mutual buffer zones or intermediate borders that both races agree to respect if neither is particularly militaristic.
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I've fixed the tugs :)
I created the Valkyrie because a half-size Battlestar with that name exists in the TV show. Its actually proven to be really useful. It functions as a secure mobile survey base, deploying survey Raptors into nearby systems and then providing overhaul and shore leave when they return. It also provides a long-range, forward combat capability, with both alien ships destroyed so far taken out by Valkyrie strikegroups. I have now added a Raptor-T tanker to the standard Valkyrie strikegroup (removing one of the two scout raptors) to extend survey Raptor range. Replenishment ships can keep it resupplied.
Re the Mortis: The Mortis is only lightly armed, but hard to detect. The 'stealth' AI also makes only minimal use of active sensors so, as in both situations in this campaign, you probably won't see it until it attacks. While the loss of a freighter and a FAC are not major, it could just as easily have wiped out a colony fleet, a troop convoy, unguarded terraformers, fuel harvesters, etc. The threat of that happening is the real problem, rather than dealing with a ship you already tracked down. Also, I just happened to have a suitable force in the right area. Finally, the new spoiler may summon reinforcements that can be a much more significant challenge, or invade smaller colonies.
With regard to diplomacy, I was actually shocked about the rejection in the Sol system. Given the huge Colonial population in Sol it should have been an easy decision for the AI. I've made peace with NPRs who have a home world two jumps from Sol and this one is at least three jumps away. While they might want a system, they do take into account the population and military forces of other races and will give up systems even if they assign some value to them. In this case, Sol must be particularly valuable to them. I suspect it is the first decent source of minerals and fuel they have found and that is why the AI won't give it up.
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Poor Stave aliens, that is some crap RNG with mineral creation that'll lead to their extinction.
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Yea, sounds like they’re in a tough spot. Maybe a dead–end chain?
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Quite the windfall for the Colonials to this point. Trading Vipers and Marines for a pile of wrecks and prizes will smooth out the early game mineral crunch a bit, and some of those prizes might be added to the fleet at least temporarily, while others can be disassembled to see what tech upgrades can be had. At the very least, an early transition to Ion Engines might be in the offing.
Viper production might be a bit of a bottleneck though. The fleet was short of being full at the start of the war, and losses have been fairly substantial. Presumably, any expeditionary force can transfer Vipers from those left behind, which can then refill from production, but it seems it might be a while before the fleet as a whole reaches full nominal strength
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A quick inquiry here, I was re-reading the ship specs and I noted this line for the Viper class:
Ares Kinetics VC-2 Viper Cannon (1x2) Range 40,000km TS: 8,001 km/s Power 1-1.5 ROF 5
Emphasis added. Now, I might be misremembering but wouldn't a two-shot 10cm railgun require 1.5 power to fire? Looks like the partial capacitor (latter number) is represented correctly in the class summary, but the weapon power to fire is truncated incorrectly?
Some pretty good battle results as the Commonality War begins here. The Colonial Fleet is benefiting from the Commonality's lack of defensive missiles which would otherwise pose some serious problems for the Viper squadrons - I'm looking forward to seeing a future NPR which has such weapons so we can see how the fighters fare. All that being said, we have yet to face a full-size battle fleet which may prove considerably more difficult to defeat for the Vipers, especially since the Stave have Ion Drive tech already so they likely have a technology advantage which will come to bear once they amass a properly large fleet instead of the various escort groups encountered so far.
Personally I am hoping to see this fight taken to the Stave homeworld so we can see how Steve handles a planetary invasion...eight regiments will probably not be enough to invade a planet, perhaps building 800 would be one solution... ;D
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Personally I am hoping to see this fight taken to the Stave homeworld so we can see how Steve handles a planetary invasion...eight regiments will probably not be enough to invade a planet, perhaps building 800 would be one solution... ;D
I've said this before and I'll say it again. I want to share the pain of trying to provide CAS to ground invasions with Steve.
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Personally I am hoping to see this fight taken to the Stave homeworld so we can see how Steve handles a planetary invasion...eight regiments will probably not be enough to invade a planet, perhaps building 800 would be one solution... ;D
I've said this before and I'll say it again. I want to share the pain of trying to provide CAS to ground invasions with Steve.
Steve has cleverly avoided this problem by not building any ground support fighters. :P
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Personally I am hoping to see this fight taken to the Stave homeworld so we can see how Steve handles a planetary invasion...eight regiments will probably not be enough to invade a planet, perhaps building 800 would be one solution... ;D
I've said this before and I'll say it again. I want to share the pain of trying to provide CAS to ground invasions with Steve.
Steve has cleverly avoided this problem by not building any ground support fighters. :P
I cri evertim :'(
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I like the theme and the way you gave it a plausible origin. I must get around to watching BSG someday.
4 layers of armour on a 37kT ship is a little thin for my tastes, but I guess that's the problem with a hybrid carrier-cruiser.
I was surprised to see 120 resolution on the Skywatch class. Given the raiders stealth tech, will you swap the standard resolution on your general purpose sensors to target them? I'd like to see NPRs adopt sensors over time to match the ships of the race they are fighting.
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I guess we still can't tow wrecks to salvage stations over Earth... :P
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Have there been any engagement with the new spoiler race as of now? I am interested to see the nefarious things Steve came up with.
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A quick inquiry here, I was re-reading the ship specs and I noted this line for the Viper class:
Ares Kinetics VC-2 Viper Cannon (1x2) Range 40,000km TS: 8,001 km/s Power 1-1.5 ROF 5
Emphasis added. Now, I might be misremembering but wouldn't a two-shot 10cm railgun require 1.5 power to fire? Looks like the partial capacitor (latter number) is represented correctly in the class summary, but the weapon power to fire is truncated incorrectly?
Yes, you are correct. Took a while to pin this one down as everything checked out fine in the code. Turns out I was using a integer field in the DB for power requirement so the error only appears after saving and restarting the game. Fixed now.
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I like the theme and the way you gave it a plausible origin. I must get around to watching BSG someday.
4 layers of armour on a 37kT ship is a little thin for my tastes, but I guess that's the problem with a hybrid carrier-cruiser.
I was surprised to see 120 resolution on the Skywatch class. Given the raiders stealth tech, will you swap the standard resolution on your general purpose sensors to target them? I'd like to see NPRs adopt sensors over time to match the ships of the race they are fighting.
The Valkyrie is really intended for survey operations rather than combat, although I will probably convert some of them to a non-survey use in the future.
All the major warships have res-1 sensors, as do all the small craft and fighter designs. The Skywatch stations are for monitoring transits, although I agree adding a small res-1 sensor is a good idea.
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All the major warships have res-1 sensors, as do all the small craft and fighter designs. The Skywatch stations are for monitoring transits, although I agree adding a small res-1 sensor is a good idea.
In the class description for the Skywatch stations, I noted that the BRG component was still listed in the C&C line, so probably you can swap that for a RES-1 sensor in future iterations to keep about the same size.
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ALL HAIL THE FIGHTER MAFIA! Praise be to Squadrons and other QoL changes!
XD Now I just need to name a character and or craft Pierre Sprey for the lulz in a campaign when 2.0 comes out.
Good luck with the campaign, fighters guide your way to gloriously microlicous victory.
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A few things worth noting in this campaign.
1) I am using the limited research admin option - based on nuclearslurpees house rule - and it works really well. You really appreciate the individual scientists, even the 2nd or 3rd best in each field, and a 20% 5 lab scientist is valuable. You also start to appreciate the 'lesser' techs, as you are researching far more techs simultaneously. While overall research is reduced to some extent (due to the greater use of lower % scientists), the 'main' techs, such as propulsion, proceed much more slowly, giving the campaign a more long-term feel.
2) Large hybrid carriers. I finally have got a good Battlestar Galactica campaign running and the most apparent impact vs a 'normal' campaign is how much you value the individual ships when you have so few of them. I started with six 'warship' Battlestars and four 'survey' Battlestars. That has now grown to ten and eight. When you only have ten major warships, you really care about each one, which adds to the overall roleplay of the campaign.
3) Squadrons. Managing large strikegroups is so much easier with the squadron options. I've been doing some tweaks in the UI, especially around detachment and movement orders, but it is really working well now.
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2) Large hybrid carriers. I finally have got a good Battlestar Galactica campaign running and the most apparent impact vs a 'normal' campaign is how much you value the individual ships when you have so few of them. I started with six 'warship' Battlestars and four 'survey' Battlestars. That has now grown to ten and eight. When you only have ten major warships, you really care about each one, which adds to the overall roleplay of the campaign.
This is awesome to hear! How are you finding the RP trickling down to the fighter pilot/officer level? I've always been disappointed in that part of my carrier-fighter based campaigns due to the minimal and random survivability of fighters and found myself wishing that officers with high right combat skills also had improved survivability so I could have at least a few "aces" in my squadrons that both had some kills and also were harder to shoot down, maybe through some element of the skill reducing hit % against them
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2) Large hybrid carriers. I finally have got a good Battlestar Galactica campaign running and the most apparent impact vs a 'normal' campaign is how much you value the individual ships when you have so few of them. I started with six 'warship' Battlestars and four 'survey' Battlestars. That has now grown to ten and eight. When you only have ten major warships, you really care about each one, which adds to the overall roleplay of the campaign.
This makes me wonder, and I apologize since I know this is like the 100th "it would be nice if it was a toggle box in game setup" suggestion and I understand not wanting to go overboard with those, but if it would be interesting to have a toggle box for "Self only jump drives." As I see it the main reason not to use a smaller number of big ships is the need for enormous jump drives on each of them, and if every ship needed its own jump drive I feel like that would go a long way towards making for fewer, more impactful ships instead of large fleets. Or maybe just the option to design self only jump drives that were half the size of a normal drive, so that it was still less efficient than a squadron jump ship but not by such a huge degree.
The first option might also, thinking back to the recent fighters thread, be an interesting way to buff fighters without giving them a specific mechanical advantage - if every ship normally needs a jump engine, then fighters would have a relative advantage in not needing to haul their jump drive along with them into combat.
Edit: Giving it 5 minutes thought I realized it would actually be a fairly major change if it changed NPR design, so maybe not.
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Or maybe just the option to design self only jump drives that were half the size of a normal drive, so that it was still less efficient than a squadron jump ship but not by such a huge degree.
If you're okay with not forcing everyone else to use jump drives on every ship, in other words you're okay with enforcing a house rule for the player race(s) only, you can cut the size of jump drives by modifying the jump drive efficiency techs in the DB - FCT_TechSystem table, TechTypeID=8, and then double (or triple, etc.) the values in the AdditionalInfo column. Again, this won't force self-jump only (you'll have to house-rule this) but you can use it to role-play without screwing up the tech progression as much as if you SMed to efficiency 12 or 15, and the small buff to NPRs is not a bad thing given the many, many struggles NPRs face in the Aurora universe.
Standard disclaimer RE: bug reporting applies, of course.
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1) I am using the limited research admin option - based on nuclearslurpees house rule - and it works really well. You really appreciate the individual scientists, even the 2nd or 3rd best in each field, and a 20% 5 lab scientist is valuable. You also start to appreciate the 'lesser' techs, as you are researching far more techs simultaneously. While overall research is reduced to some extent (due to the greater use of lower % scientists), the 'main' techs, such as propulsion, proceed much more slowly, giving the campaign a more long-term feel.
What rule is this?
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1) I am using the limited research admin option - based on nuclearslurpees house rule - and it works really well. You really appreciate the individual scientists, even the 2nd or 3rd best in each field, and a 20% 5 lab scientist is valuable. You also start to appreciate the 'lesser' techs, as you are researching far more techs simultaneously. While overall research is reduced to some extent (due to the greater use of lower % scientists), the 'main' techs, such as propulsion, proceed much more slowly, giving the campaign a more long-term feel.
What rule is this?
New option in v2.0
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=12523.msg158198#msg158198
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Cant wait! seeing the squadrons and the new update in action make me want to do my babylon 5 setup even more
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The first Virgon class Salvager was launched on January 13th 2302. It was larger than its Commonality equivalent, with twice the salvaging capacity, although slightly slower. The immediate problem was a lack of freighters,
I put Cargo space on mine, I didn'tknow you could use freighters.
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You need cargo space in the same location. That can be freighters or cargo bays on the salvage ship, with each having its own pros and cons
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The advantage of in-built capacity is that you can't forget to send a freighter with it.
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Steve, despite how disastrously my first foray into fighters went (in 1.13), your fiction makes me strongly consider giving it another go. You are a terrible influence!
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The Stave are keeping quiet, I wonder if they found a new expansion route or if they are just building up for a big push.
It might be a nice improvement to make NPR's re-examine their fleet orders whenever a system claim is accepted, if those orders involve travel to/through the newly claimed system. It would prevent the Battle of New Orleans.
The Cobra is an interesting design, it's too big to be built as a fighter so there's a cost in building the shipyard. Personally I'd try and make it at 900T with 2 weapons, although you need to squeeze in the larger BFC and reactor so that might not be possible. That would give you 33% more firepower per ton.
I noticed that the Cobra has fuel for ~27 hours but the deployment time is only ~21 hours.
RIP Jormungandr, lost after first contact with a Toaster.
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Having used long ranged fighter myself, firepower per ton is not the real limitation. Their MSP and speed is the real factor since they can do their damage over an arbitrarily long amount of time for no cost since they are intended to kite the opponent at no to little risk. You won't want to risk them in enemy effective range unless you really have no other choice. Very good for finishing off stragglers with no long range or lower tech opponents at no risk.
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Having used long ranged fighter myself, firepower per ton is not the real limitation. Their MSP and speed is the real factor since they can do their damage over an arbitrarily long amount of time for no cost since they are intended to kite the opponent at no to little risk. You won't want to risk them in enemy effective range unless you really have no other choice. Very good for finishing off stragglers with no long range or lower tech opponents at no risk.
A more efficient use of tonnage might let you carry more MSP per weapon, but mainly I was thinking Steve could reduce the number of Cobras to pack in more Vipers or scouts.
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Steve, I noticed that you are not using any armor on your Vipers or Cobras. Why is that? Obviously it depends on the weapons of your opponents, but it seems like at least 2 or 3 layers of armor would provide significantly better survivability and be a fairly low mass investment/speed reduction. Do you feel that if they do get hit, they're already toast? Not a criticism, just a question, since I haven't used fighters much.
(Question is addressed to Steve since these are his designs, but anyone with fighter experience should feel free to weigh in)
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Steve, I noticed that you are not using any armor on your Vipers or Cobras. Why is that? Obviously it depends on the weapons of your opponents, but it seems like at least 2 or 3 layers of armor would provide significantly better survivability and be a fairly low mass investment/speed reduction. Do you feel that if they do get hit, they're already toast? Not a criticism, just a question, since I haven't used fighters much.
(Question is addressed to Steve since these are his designs, but anyone with fighter experience should feel free to weigh in)
Shock damage mechanics ignore armor and view fighters quite unfavourably due to their small size, so armor doesn't do as well as one might hope.
Then there's the fact that space is always at a premium for fighters so often there literally is no space to place armor.
In the case of fighters speed is armor, though I personally try at least 2 layers of armor to help against AMMs and some amount of gauss.
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Steve, I noticed that you are not using any armor on your Vipers or Cobras. Why is that? Obviously it depends on the weapons of your opponents, but it seems like at least 2 or 3 layers of armor would provide significantly better survivability and be a fairly low mass investment/speed reduction. Do you feel that if they do get hit, they're already toast? Not a criticism, just a question, since I haven't used fighters much.
(Question is addressed to Steve since these are his designs, but anyone with fighter experience should feel free to weigh in)
Shock damage mechanics ignore armor and view fighters quite unfavourably due to their small size, so armor doesn't do as well as one might hope.
Then there's the fact that space is always at a premium for fighters so often there literally is no space to place armor.
In the case of fighters speed is armor, though I personally try at least 2 layers of armor to help against AMMs and some amount of gauss.
This is technically true, but not completely relevant. Shock damage can occur when the armor damage caused by the impact is larger than the displacement of the ship in kilotons. If it is lower, there is no shock damage. This means every hit upon a fighter or FAC has the chance to cause shock damage, no matter the weapon. And here comes the BUT:
Shock damage is equal to 1/5th of the armor damage. If the damage is not divisible by 5, there is a chance for 1 additional point of shock damage, which is equivalent to dmg/5. This means for the Viper with exactly 1 HTK, that it gets killed by a non penetrating 1 damage hit in 20% of the cases and all of the time if the weapon causes 2 points of damage and is not a carronade or missile. If it had 2 layers of armor. there would be a 60% chance to survive such a hit.
Edit 1: I am dumb. Feel free to quote it. I have to fix this post, as it ignored the chance for shock damage.
Edit 2: The chance for shock damage to happen is about damage*16.7% for a 300 ton vessel like the Viper mk1. This means the chance of a kill by a non penetrating 1 damage hit is 0.167*0.20 about 3.3%.
A 2 damage laser hit remains a kill, as it reduces the internal HTK of the fighter to 0. A second layer of armor would stop the shot and the chance of catastrophic shock damage would be 0.33*0.40, which is about 13%.
This means the second layer of armor increases the survivability against low damage beams significantly. A weapon with 6 points of damage kills the fighter all of the time though, as the chance of causing 1 point of shock damage is 100%
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Steve, I noticed that you are not using any armor on your Vipers or Cobras. Why is that? Obviously it depends on the weapons of your opponents, but it seems like at least 2 or 3 layers of armor would provide significantly better survivability and be a fairly low mass investment/speed reduction. Do you feel that if they do get hit, they're already toast? Not a criticism, just a question, since I haven't used fighters much.
(Question is addressed to Steve since these are his designs, but anyone with fighter experience should feel free to weigh in)
For the Viper, adding a single layer of armour would add 22 tons to a 300-ton fighter. That is the same as the combined fuel, maintenance and sensors. Space is at such a premium on fighters that armour isn't really the best use of that space. I would rather have more speed, range or weapon capability. Also, the main restriction on attacking fighters is the number of available fire controls so they tend to be over-killed anyway.
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As the enemy AIs in this game are all coping perfectly well without missiles, do you think we could get this as an option in V2.0? We can't all be as lucky as Steve in what the AI picks and a game with AMM spam just sounds wonderful.
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Steve, I noticed that you are not using any armor on your Vipers or Cobras. Why is that? Obviously it depends on the weapons of your opponents, but it seems like at least 2 or 3 layers of armor would provide significantly better survivability and be a fairly low mass investment/speed reduction. Do you feel that if they do get hit, they're already toast? Not a criticism, just a question, since I haven't used fighters much.
(Question is addressed to Steve since these are his designs, but anyone with fighter experience should feel free to weigh in)
--- I seldom, if ever, use more than three layers of armor on a fighter. And even then, I rarely ever use armor at all. For fighters, speed is a very good defense; a very, very good defense indeed. Tonnage is at the highest premium for fighters, second only to FACs and I'd almost always want more range or guns instead of armor. I have one exception, found on the forums often under the name Valkyrie-Class Interceptor, although I have more than a few flavors of it for varying tech levels. They are, to wit, 250 ton craft with 3 layers of armor and a trackingless twin-turret Gauss Cannon on a big, boosted engine. 3 layers of armor gives you quite the edge against enemy beam fighters and low-caliber beam weapons of most sorts... to say nothing of a typical AMM or even dedicated Anti-Fighter Missile. I've used them to great effect in more than one campaign and they tend to be fairly survivable for fighters.
--- Speed is life for fighters, simple as. Shields... well they're good if you just need to survive one hit. And that's about it.
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Finally we have some ground combat action aaaand it's over. As this was certainly not combat with a peer-level enemy, I am sure the Colonial Marines will not let this go to their heads and instill a false sense of superiority ahead of an assured peer-level conflict to occur sooner or later.
Steve, I'm curious - now that you've built up quite a lot of forces (22x regiments with 3-4x battalions each ~= 100ish formations by now) on the 5,000-ton base formation size basis, how are you finding the situation in terms of leadership with the 2.0 changes to generation? Do you have enough generals colonels for your forces or is the formation size still too small for leader generation to keep up?
I note that the Cerberus aliens have apparently still been designated as "neutral", while we can all admire the tasteful green color of the radar contacts this may be perhaps a tad optimistic of the Colonial admiralty, but who am I to judge? ;)
The heroic Viper pilots had obliterated almost double their own tonnage in less than a minute in a battle against a higher tech opponent while losing only twenty-eight fighters, approximately twelve percent of their number. In comparison, the cost of the missiles that damaged a single Conqueror earlier in the battle was equal to ten Viper MK IIs.
This should provide some interesting food for thought in that sub-thread discussion about the relative merits of beam vs. missile fighters. Even if you add in the tonnage of the carriers, which suggests that the Vipers effectively "only" destroyed tonnage equal to their own fleet, it is still an impressive victory. I do wonder though what the impact of losing so many skilled crew and commanders might be in the long term.
Regarding the Pericles situation, given the rather thinly-stretched dispositions of the Colonial Fleet it is probably best to try and coexist with Remus so long as they are not complaining too much about the Colonial presence in Pericles. It should not be difficult to persuade them to stay out of Leonis since the Colonial presence there is substantial, and there is nothing worth their time in the intervening systems. The wild card here is whether Remus will agree to such a peaceful co-existence...
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I just realised that in the second attack on Cerberus, I forgot to setup the fire controls on four of the six the Battlestars, so the missile defence against the AMMs was mostly the railgun fighters. It looks I might be going back sooner than I thought :)
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Steve, I'm curious - now that you've built up quite a lot of forces (22x regiments with 3-4x battalions each ~= 100ish formations by now) on the 5,000-ton base formation size basis, how are you finding the situation in terms of leadership with the 2.0 changes to generation? Do you have enough generals colonels for your forces or is the formation size still too small for leader generation to keep up?
I note that the Cerberus aliens have apparently still been designated as "neutral", while we can all admire the tasteful green color of the radar contacts this may be perhaps a tad optimistic of the Colonial admiralty, but who am I to judge? ;)
The heroic Viper pilots had obliterated almost double their own tonnage in less than a minute in a battle against a higher tech opponent while losing only twenty-eight fighters, approximately twelve percent of their number. In comparison, the cost of the missiles that damaged a single Conqueror earlier in the battle was equal to ten Viper MK IIs.
This should provide some interesting food for thought in that sub-thread discussion about the relative merits of beam vs. missile fighters. Even if you add in the tonnage of the carriers, which suggests that the Vipers effectively "only" destroyed tonnage equal to their own fleet, it is still an impressive victory. I do wonder though what the impact of losing so many skilled crew and commanders might be in the long term.
Regarding the Pericles situation, given the rather thinly-stretched dispositions of the Colonial Fleet it is probably best to try and coexist with Remus so long as they are not complaining too much about the Colonial presence in Pericles. It should not be difficult to persuade them to stay out of Leonis since the Colonial presence there is substantial, and there is nothing worth their time in the intervening systems. The wild card here is whether Remus will agree to such a peaceful co-existence...
I currently have 198 rank 1 army commanders but only 28 rank 2. This matches very well with the current 27 regiments, 100+ battalions and sundry other forces such as engineers and geo survey. Even the most recently produced battalions have commanders.
The neutral status was an oversight, which I corrected later - fortunately they weren't firing missiles at me :)
On the missile vs beam, this campaign is definitely not changing my mind so far. The railgun fighters are proving effective on both offence and defence, at least when used en masse.
Agree on Remus - I think I can live with them unless they popup somewhere else.
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This should provide some interesting food for thought in that sub-thread discussion about the relative merits of beam vs. missile fighters. Even if you add in the tonnage of the carriers, which suggests that the Vipers effectively "only" destroyed tonnage equal to their own fleet, it is still an impressive victory. I do wonder though what the impact of losing so many skilled crew and commanders might be in the long term.
I said in that thread that I was curious to see how they'd perform in a major fleet fight, and I will have to admit they greatly exceeded my expectations. I wouldn't measure fighters ton per ton against capital ships either, though in my case it's because they're usually more expensive per ton due to how the game calculates engine costs, but even considering that it was still a really impressive victory for the fighters.
I normally regard beam fighters as more ancillary combatants, suitable for picking off small detachments of heavier warships or maybe a mostly missile based fleet that's out of ammo, but not really effective for a straight up fight against a comparable force of capital ships unsupported. This may be a sign I've been underestimating them.
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Are those enemy FACs with box launchers!? :o
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I have a question about fire control modus when engaging fighter spam. How do you automate target changes in such a situation? You want 1 fire control system per target and switch them whenever some fighter kicks the bucket. It is either extremely tedious or you use 'fire at will' which concentrates the fire at the target on the top.
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I have a question about fire control modus when engaging fighter spam. How do you automate target changes in such a situation? You want 1 fire control system per target and switch them whenever some fighter kicks the bucket. It is either extremely tedious or you use 'fire at will' which concentrates the fire at the target on the top.
Isn't fire at will random targeting? I don't think its supposed to focus fire.
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Are those enemy FACs with box launchers!? :o
Yes. Did you also note the 17,500 ton base launching salvos of 76 missiles at four minute intervals? :)
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Are those enemy FACs with box launchers!? :o
Yes. Did you also note the 17,500 ton base launching salvos of 76 missiles at four minute intervals? :)
Ohohoh yes yes yes I did! ;D
AMM/PD against NPRs just got a bit more complex and that's a good thing, thanks Steve!
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AMM/PD against NPRs just got a bit more complex and that's a good thing, thanks Steve!
The best point defense is a good point offense! (https://i.somethingawful.com/forumsystem/emoticons/emot-black101.gif)
Jokes aside I'm interested to see how NPRs with box launchers turn out, many of the playerbase will have to learn that box launchers can in fact be countered and are not all-powerful I-WIN buttons, I suspect.
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Really enjoyed last update, very nice that Precursors are getting some new toys.
I wonder if we now have box launchers for NPRs, maybe we are also getting surprise NPR fighters :D
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I normally regard beam fighters as more ancillary combatants, suitable for picking off small detachments of heavier warships or maybe a mostly missile based fleet that's out of ammo, but not really effective for a straight up fight against a comparable force of capital ships unsupported. This may be a sign I've been underestimating them.
My main concern has always been a fighter force being picked off by AMM fire before it even gets a chance to get into range.
In my current game a typical NPR AMM escort cruiser has 1500 missiles with a 2m km range. Sure the Vipers can shoot down incoming missiles, but as the end of that update showed a lot of shots got through to hit the Battlestars and the fleets railguns were also important. If the enemy had deployed a couple of AMM escort cruisers things might have been very different, so I'm going to wait and see what happens in that scenario.
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Yeah beam fighters were not really successful against the massed AMM strike, they got lucky that the enemy targeted motherships that had sufficient armour belt to soak it.
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Yeah beam fighters were not really successful against the massed AMM strike, they got lucky that the enemy targeted motherships that had sufficient armour belt to soak it.
Isn't that more of a problem with AMMs in general, not beam fighters specifically? There aren't very many effective point-defense counters to massed AMM strikes.
That said, since AMMs don't retarget, it seems like losses would be at most one ship per salvo. In response, one could try creating a "bait" fighter/FAC designed to deliberately draw AMM fire (perhaps piloted by convicted criminals or political prisoners).
Chaff class Scout (P) 50 tons 1 Crew 15.7 BP TCS 1 TH 22 EM 0
22705 km/s Armour 1-1 Shields 0-0 HTK 1 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 9% IFR 0.1% 1YR 0 5YR 5 Max Repair 18 MSP
Lieutenant Commander Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days Morale Check Required
Magneto-plasma Drive EP22.40 (1) Power 22.4 Fuel Use 1496.66% Signature 22.40 Explosion 20%
Fuel Capacity 4,000 Litres Range 0.98 billion km (11 hours at full power)
Active Search Sensor AS31-R500 (1) GPS 1050 Range 31.8m km Resolution 500
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
This design is classed as a a for auto-assignment purposes
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I have a question about fire control modus when engaging fighter spam. How do you automate target changes in such a situation? You want 1 fire control system per target and switch them whenever some fighter kicks the bucket. It is either extremely tedious or you use 'fire at will' which concentrates the fire at the target on the top.
Isn't fire at will random targeting? I don't think its supposed to focus fire.
If my mind serves me, the last time I used the command the fleet obliterated one ship after the other beginning with the contact at the top. Could have been luck though, but it would suck really hard in such an engagement.
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Yeah beam fighters were not really successful against the massed AMM strike, they got lucky that the enemy targeted motherships that had sufficient armour belt to soak it.
Isn't that more of a problem with AMMs in general, not beam fighters specifically? There aren't very many effective point-defense counters to massed AMM strikes.
That said, since AMMs don't retarget, it seems like losses would be at most one ship per salvo. In response, one could try creating a "bait" fighter/FAC designed to deliberately draw AMM fire (perhaps piloted by convicted criminals or political prisoners).
Chaff class Scout (P) 50 tons 1 Crew 15.7 BP TCS 1 TH 22 EM 0
22705 km/s Armour 1-1 Shields 0-0 HTK 1 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 9% IFR 0.1% 1YR 0 5YR 5 Max Repair 18 MSP
Lieutenant Commander Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days Morale Check Required
Magneto-plasma Drive EP22.40 (1) Power 22.4 Fuel Use 1496.66% Signature 22.40 Explosion 20%
Fuel Capacity 4,000 Litres Range 0.98 billion km (11 hours at full power)
Active Search Sensor AS31-R500 (1) GPS 1050 Range 31.8m km Resolution 500
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
This design is classed as a a for auto-assignment purposes
That strategy is inhumane and funny at the same time. I bet they can outrun equal tech level ASMs and AMMs have a hard time hitting these bastards. How much chaff and crew is "consumed" against a precursor AMM base at average?
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My main concern has always been a fighter force being picked off by AMM fire before it even gets a chance to get into range.
It is worth noting that Steve said he forgot to set up several of the Battlestar BFCs so the point defense was much less than needed. Given the size of the Cerberus fleet and the fact that defensive stations have much greater proportional throw mass than regular (i.e., self-propelled) ships I think the AMM threat here is somewhat overstated. We must also consider the tech level difference between the Colonial Fleet (NGC/ion drives) and Cerberus (MP drives). If the Colonial Fleet were to magically have 25% higher ship speeds and tracking speeds (i.e., just +1 tech level), the situation would look much rosier I suspect.
Pretty much every time this has come up in beam fighter discussions I have done analysis of railgun fighters vs AMMs which shows that the fighters can, if properly designed, deal with AMM spam pretty reasonably - the fighters can defend against AMM spam from roughly equal tonnage of NPR missile escort ships, and the fact that fighters require a carrier is roughly balanced out on a tonnage basis by the fact that NPR fleets are never solely composed of AMM escorts. It is not the most exciting play pattern, but you can fairly reliably weather the AMM storm and then close for beam combat as shown in this and I believe other AARs.
The "problem" of AMM spam is really only such when considering a multiple player race scenario where one player race attempts to cheese the game with a pure AMM-spam fleet, in which case it is probably true that fighters (or indeed most other kinds of ships) will be insufficient at the tactical level (although strategically, the cost of AMM spam is quite prohibitive and a beam weapon fleet may suffer high initial losses and then push back if the enemy runs out of AMMs before destroying the entire fleet). However in this case I would argue that cheese is met with cheese, as the player you decide how silly you want things to be as Aurora has (almost) never been balanced around closing exploits if the player would like to use them.
I will concede that when facing a missile opponent, pretty much only railgun fighters will be viable at most practical tech levels, even Gauss fighters are strictly inferior below basically MaxTech level, and laser fighters, etc. are certainly right out to say nothing of the folly of using plasma or meson fighters. That being said not everything should be equally viable in Aurora, and these other fighter weapons can have a place in other situations (except Gauss fighters, never use these except for roleplay purposes, please, I am begging you).
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Technical question: Is the galactic map one screenshot or is it several images stitched together?
Related: How often do you forget where systems are?
Potential bug: The wrecks left by the Vipers are shown as 250T on the map, but the design is supposed to be 300T.
Mars
Population: 12.4m
Installations: 313x Automated Mine, 138x Mine.
Duranium: 723,777 0.80
Tritanium: 1,037,236 0.10
Vendarite: 5,661,236 0.10
Sorium: 2,134,280 0.10
Gallicite: 1,015,089 0.80
I don't think I've ever had a game where Mars possesses minerals at a useful accessibility. In my current game I have 4 minerals at accessibility 0.1, and in my previous game I think there was Sorium at 0.1 accessibility. At least when it's completely empty it doesn't feel like it's taunting me. :P
I'd do some analysis of the missiles but I've got a headache.
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Potential bug: The wrecks left by the Vipers are shown as 250T on the map, but the design is supposed to be 300T.
This always happens, wreck sizes seem to be shown by taking the size of the class in HS and rounding down to the nearest integer, and even though a ship size may display as 300 tons it is actually something like 5.996 HS which rounds down to 5 HS, or 250 tons.
This also happens in a couple of other places in the game interface, nowhere too upsetting though.
I don't think I've ever had a game where Mars possesses minerals at a useful accessibility. In my current game I have 4 minerals at accessibility 0.1, and in my previous game I think there was Sorium at 0.1 accessibility. At least when it's completely empty it doesn't feel like it's taunting me. :P
I've seen 0.7 or 0.8 accessibility duranium deposits once or twice, but it's usually pretty rare.
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From the changes thread:
(you might guess there is a ground invasion happening in my current campaign) :)
:o :o :o ;D ;D ;D
Steve actually invading a NPR home world in C#? Can it be?? I can't wait!
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Potential bug: The wrecks left by the Vipers are shown as 250T on the map, but the design is supposed to be 300T.
This always happens, wreck sizes seem to be shown by taking the size of the class in HS and rounding down to the nearest integer, and even though a ship size may display as 300 tons it is actually something like 5.996 HS which rounds down to 5 HS, or 250 tons.
Its not a bug as such, because the code is written that way. It was a holdover from earlier versions. However, I have changed v2.0 so that wrecks are rounded to the nearest ton, rather than rounded down to the nearest HS.
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From the changes thread:
(you might guess there is a ground invasion happening in my current campaign) :)
:o :o :o ;D ;D ;D
Steve actually invading a NPR home world in C#? Can it be?? I can't wait!
Definitely not with the available forces I have, but it is an interesting situation that I will cover in the next campaign update.
Your house rule I added to v2.0 (limited research admin) is causing all sorts of interesting dynamics in this campaign, and one of them is limited ground tech. I don't even have heavy vehicles yet.
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This is turning out to be quite the campaign - my games have a tendency to stall out with few if any threats encountered, but the Twelve Colonies seem to be beset on all sides. It almost feels like it would be more fitting for a WH40k game :P
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This is turning out to be quite the campaign - my games have a tendency to stall out with few if any threats encountered, but the Twelve Colonies seem to be beset on all sides. It almost feels like it would be more fitting for a WH40k game :P
It is becoming very eventful :)
I also like the limited number of major warships - each one is building up a history and really means something to the campaign. Lots of ships being damaged and surviving. Also as I mentioned above, the limited research admin rule is stretching out the development of major new techs, such as propulsion, and making secondary and tertiary scientists in each field very valuable.
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Are you/will you award campaign medals to the capitals (and maybe some of the fighter SQNs) to keep a nice, easy to see record? "Surveyed 3 systems without losing a Raptor" might be a rare one, though...
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This is turning out to be quite the campaign - my games have a tendency to stall out with few if any threats encountered, but the Twelve Colonies seem to be beset on all sides. It almost feels like it would be more fitting for a WH40k game :P
It is becoming very eventful :)
I also like the limited number of major warships - each one is building up a history and really means something to the campaign. Lots of ships being damaged and surviving. Also as I mentioned above, the limited research admin rule is stretching out the development of major new techs, such as propulsion, and making secondary and tertiary scientists in each field very valuable.
Yes, I have been personally using limited research facilities on scientists for quite a while. Once you do that, you never go back to how it was before :P
It's so much more fun, compared to just blitzing through reactor/engine techs one after another ;D
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Interesting to see dispersed NPR forces protecting mining colonies, most likely because Raiders.
We saw very little activity from them against Twelve Colonies, so maybe they are engaged against NPRs?
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Interesting to see dispersed NPR forces protecting mining colonies, most likely because Raiders.
We saw very little activity from them against Twelve Colonies, so maybe they are engaged against NPRs?
I have the 'Raider attack NPRs' option on - so they will be launching probes into NPR systems too. There are also a lot of unpopulated systems, so the Raiders could be probing those and I will remain unaware of it. I may need to increase the number of raider forces, but I am going to wait for widespread feedback first.
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Things are really heating up now! This new and aggressive race on the Cyrene-Scylla axis could be a significant challenge, I suspect that the Raptors are likely to be a good counter to these new enemies but will take heavy losses while winning through weight of numbers. Hopefully, not so much weight of numbers will be needed that other borders will be stripped, else we may find an opportunistic NPR bearing down on Sol before long.
I see why the change to ground combat AI was made as well, though it made sense in the AAR fluff it really is an exploitable mechanic if the AI doesn't counter it.
Yes, I have been personally using limited research facilities on scientists for quite a while. Once you do that, you never go back to how it was before :P
It's so much more fun, compared to just blitzing through reactor/engine techs one after another ;D
I've been enjoying it even more with Steve's tweak for 2.0 that makes reduced scientist admin 20% + 1 rather than the straight 20% I originally used. This makes those admin-5 scientists with high research skill much more useful since they can use two labs instead of one, making them ideal to pursue side projects that you don't want to dedicate a lot of limited lab space to.
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I like that the Cerberus (Cerberans?) used some missiles at point blank range, that's a good tactic for when the enemy least wants to divert firepower for point defence.
The Vipers seem to do a lot worse when they don't have big ships drawing fire for them. I hope you gave out lots of medals to the survivors.
Talos-A II Survey Report
Duranium: 129,154,592 0.70
Neutronium: 60,516 0.10
Tritanium: 25,847,056 0.80
Mercassium: 35,832,196 0.10
Vendarite: 4,901,796 0.10
Sorium: 63,266,116 0.10
Uridium: 63,266,116 0.10
Corundium: 7,322,436 1.00
Gallicite: 7,322,436 1.00
Caprica V Survey Report
Duranium: 7,960,050 0.70
Neutronium: 4,264,225 0.10
Corbomite: 490,000 0.60
Tritanium: 1,768,900 0.90
Boronide: 828,100 0.80
Mercassium: 99,225 0.80
Vendarite: 396,900 0.10
Sorium: 8,236,900 0.10
Uridium: 2,160,900 0.80
Corundium: 8,643,600 0.10
Gallicite: 10,595,025 0.80
The mineral generation RNG turned up 2 sets of 2 on Talos, is that a bug or a hidden super secret signal?
It also seems uncommonly fond of ending with the number 6 on Talos, and ending with 00 or 25 on Caprica.
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Talos-A II Survey Report
Duranium: 129,154,592 0.70
Neutronium: 60,516 0.10
Tritanium: 25,847,056 0.80
Mercassium: 35,832,196 0.10
Vendarite: 4,901,796 0.10
Sorium: 63,266,116 0.10
Uridium: 63,266,116 0.10
Corundium: 7,322,436 1.00
Gallicite: 7,322,436 1.00
Caprica V Survey Report
Duranium: 7,960,050 0.70
Neutronium: 4,264,225 0.10
Corbomite: 490,000 0.60
Tritanium: 1,768,900 0.90
Boronide: 828,100 0.80
Mercassium: 99,225 0.80
Vendarite: 396,900 0.10
Sorium: 8,236,900 0.10
Uridium: 2,160,900 0.80
Corundium: 8,643,600 0.10
Gallicite: 10,595,025 0.80
The mineral generation RNG turned up 2 sets of 2 on Talos, is that a bug or a hidden super secret signal?
It also seems uncommonly fond of ending with the number 6 on Talos, and ending with 00 or 25 on Caprica.
I still haven't figured out why that duplicate mineral generation still happens. I suspect its because the C# RNG uses the system clock as a basis for its algorithm and very occasionally two numbers are generated in the same tick. At some point, I need to find a way to fix that, but it hasn't proved to be a major issue so far.
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Sorium: 63,266,116 0.10
Uridium: 63,266,116 0.10
Corundium: 7,322,436 1.00
Gallicite: 7,322,436 1.00
The mineral generation RNG turned up 2 sets of 2 on Talos, is that a bug or a hidden super secret signal?
It also seems uncommonly fond of ending with the number 6 on Talos, and ending with 00 or 25 on Caprica.
I still haven't figured out why that duplicate mineral generation still happens. I suspect its because the C# RNG uses the system clock as a basis for its algorithm and very occasionally two numbers are generated in the same tick. At some point, I need to find a way to fix that, but it hasn't proved to be a major issue so far.
The way a PRNG works is that it has a state value that changes every time you ask for a random number. Usually you start the PRNG out with a seed. Common practice is to use the time as the seed, but for games it is very common to allow the user to enter a seed (or to type a word or phrase which is converted into a number for use as a seed), and it is also common to store the random number state in the save file to reduce the impact of save scumming.
Unless you are reseeding the PRNG during the game, the rate at which you generate random numbers won’t affect the likelihood of repeated outputs.
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The way a PRNG works is that it has a state value that changes every time you ask for a random number. Usually you start the PRNG out with a seed. Common practice is to use the time as the seed, but for games it is very common to allow the user to enter a seed (or to type a word or phrase which is converted into a number for use as a seed), and it is also common to store the random number state in the save file to reduce the impact of save scumming.
Unless you are reseeding the PRNG during the game, the rate at which you generate random numbers won’t affect the likelihood of repeated outputs.
I checked - and I left myself a comment several years ago :)
// single instance to avoid using same timestamp as seed
public static Random rnd = new Random();
So I guess the clock theory isn't the answer.
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I've got to admit the gamey-ness of dropping troops on a planet and waiting for them to build up fortification before "attacking" without leaving their fortification kind of annoys me.
I'm a little confused by what happened, though.
The surviving alien forces, perhaps a sixth of the original force, withdrew into the jungle, forcing the marines to leave their own fortified positions and hunt for them, which noticeably increased their casualty rate. Another eighteen days of ambushes and small-scale battles was required before the last mech was finally hunted down and destroyed. Caprica IV was secured on August 18th 2311.
This sounds like the enemy no longer had units on front line attack or defense and thus the twelve colonies had to go to front line attack, except for two things - I was under the impression units could only go on front line attack if they had full supplies, and (I'm less sure about this one) don't units on support and rear echelon not get to directly attack, so casualties should have been zero?
I may not understand the rules for support and rear echelon, since I believed the above was true and thus thought the "land units and fortify" had an easy solution - just set a single formation on front line attack and they'll start inflicting casualties without return fire, thus forcing the enemy to switch positions and engage with you. If this isn't true, maybe it would be best to change the rules so a unit loses all fortification whenever it changes battlefield position, instead of only when it moves to frontline attack (with the difference between units on frontline attack would never gain fortification even if left there)?
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I've got to admit the gamey-ness of dropping troops on a planet and waiting for them to build up fortification before "attacking" without leaving their fortification kind of annoys me.
Yes, me too :)
When both sides are on frontline defence, its effectively trench warfare. When one is on frontline defence and the other is on support, combat doesn't happen
However, for v2.0 the AI will now assess the option of switching to frontline attack in that situation, which will allow it to attack enemy units on support. On this occasion the AI decided not to, because they had excellent fortifications and even attacking the first wave would have put them in a worse situation than holding their position.
The surviving alien forces, perhaps a sixth of the original force, withdrew into the jungle, forcing the marines to leave their own fortified positions and hunt for them, which noticeably increased their casualty rate. Another eighteen days of ambushes and small-scale battles was required before the last mech was finally hunted down and destroyed. Caprica IV was secured on August 18th 2311.
This sounds like the enemy no longer had units on front line attack or defense and thus the twelve colonies had to go to front line attack, except for two things - I was under the impression units could only go on front line attack if they had full supplies, and (I'm less sure about this one) don't units on support and rear echelon not get to directly attack, so casualties should have been zero?
I may not understand the rules for support and rear echelon, since I believed the above was true and thus thought the "land units and fortify" had an easy solution - just set a single formation on front line attack and they'll start inflicting casualties without return fire, thus forcing the enemy to switch positions and engage with you. If this isn't true, maybe it would be best to change the rules so a unit loses all fortification whenever it changes battlefield position, instead of only when it moves to frontline attack (with the difference between units on frontline attack would never gain fortification even if left there)?
The aliens had a second force - the STOs and a guard force - that were in rear echelon. Therefore, the Colonials had to change from frontline defence to frontline attack in order to engage them. Once they did that, the AI switched its forces to frontline defence again so they could fight back. The AI has a lot of changes for v2.0.
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I'm glad the fighter pilots got a bit of a break this time. We'll have to see if these newfangled 'Cylons' give them any trouble.
You mentioned all the Battlestars stationed at Earth, but how many of them have fighters?
The Abductor class missile cruiser seemed to have a serious design flaw.
Was this comment in character or out of character?
Retribution class Escort Cruiser
Colonel Control Rating 3 BRG AUX CIC
Why do the Cerberus use auxiliary control?
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I've got to admit the gamey-ness of dropping troops on a planet and waiting for them to build up fortification before "attacking" without leaving their fortification kind of annoys me.
Yes, me too :)
When both sides are on frontline defence, its effectively trench warfare. When one is on frontline defence and the other is on support, combat doesn't happen
However, for v2.0 the AI will now assess the option of switching to frontline attack in that situation, which will allow it to attack enemy units on support. On this occasion the AI decided not to, because they had excellent fortifications and even attacking the first wave would have put them in a worse situation than holding their position.
I'm glad to hear the AI is improving. Though in that situation - the AI has a lot of units with good fortification they don't want to lose - could I suggest the best response would be for the AI to set a small formation to front line attack? If I understand the rules right, that means the defender has to respond since support and rear echelon units won't shoot back, but if they set their entire force to front line defense then they'll be engaging all of the AI units on front line defense with fortification bonus. Sure, one AI formation will have lost its fortification, but that will be less painful since the attacks will be spread out among all formations and not just the unfortified one.
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If the AI is programmed to switch to front line attack against an inferior dropped force, wouldn't it be easy to bait the AI out of their formations by sending in a token wave before the main landing?
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I've got to admit the gamey-ness of dropping troops on a planet and waiting for them to build up fortification before "attacking" without leaving their fortification kind of annoys me.
Yes, me too :)
When both sides are on frontline defence, its effectively trench warfare. When one is on frontline defence and the other is on support, combat doesn't happen
This is something that both confused and annoyed me.
It indeed doesn't make much sense how it's possible for two sides to fight until one dies without anyone losing any entrenchement ( and if we include engineers we are talking some heavy defensive works I supposed ).
On the other hand making it so defence vs defence doesn't fight at all would make it very all or nothing as you couldn't conduct limited offensives where for example 1 of your tank units attacks 1 of theirs, as all 200 of their units would fire back at your one tank.
Some kind of limits on how many times more tonnage that can target a specific unit back would be needed for that to work. ( If you attack with just a 10k ton formation max 50k tons of enemy formations may fire back or something like that ).
Other options to consider might be having combat degrade fortification or making special rules for where frontline defense vs frontline defense result in extremly low intensity combat.
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If the AI is programmed to switch to front line attack against an inferior dropped force, wouldn't it be easy to bait the AI out of their formations by sending in a token wave before the main landing?
That is a good point. I'll adjust so only an appropriate number of units change position.
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It indeed doesn't make much sense how it's possible for two sides to fight until one dies without anyone losing any entrenchement
That is pretty much what happened in WW1 on the Western Front. Both sides made attacks from their fortifications, then fell back into them. Defence vs Defence is allowed so I don't have to add complexity by making fortifications separate from units, which would be difficult on a planetary scale.
Front Line Attack is more WW2 Blitzkrieg style fighting.
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That is pretty much what happened in WW1 on the Western Front. Both sides made attacks from their fortifications, then fell back into them. Defence vs Defence is allowed so I don't have to add complexity by making fortifications separate from units, which would be difficult on a planetary scale.
Front Line Attack is more WW2 Blitzkrieg style fighting.
Yeah. The point where the abstraction fails though is when static WW1 Western Front trench warfare can be used to take over an entire planet within a few days or weeks at most ( assuming a longer time without hostility to dig in before that short combat phase ).
The current model works decently as long as you dont abuse it ( and actually put your units on Front Line Attack when you do attack ). But at least in my mind it's hard to accept how you can move the trenches and engineered bunkers with you as you rapidly advance and capture an entire planet in a very short time period.
The only plausible way to win with Front Line Defense is against a hyperaggressive enemy ( say Klingon or Zerg ) that throws all their units against your lines suicidally and allow you to walk in unopposed after they all killed themselves. But the question then becomes, why did they let you dig in in the first place?
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That is pretty much what happened in WW1 on the Western Front. Both sides made attacks from their fortifications, then fell back into them. Defence vs Defence is allowed so I don't have to add complexity by making fortifications separate from units, which would be difficult on a planetary scale.
Front Line Attack is more WW2 Blitzkrieg style fighting.
Yeah. The point where the abstraction fails though is when static WW1 Western Front trench warfare can be used to take over an entire planet within a few days or weeks at most ( assuming a longer time without hostility to dig in before that short combat phase ).
The current model works decently as long as you dont abuse it ( and actually put your units on Front Line Attack when you do attack ). But at least in my mind it's hard to accept how you can move the trenches and engineered bunkers with you as you rapidly advance and capture an entire planet in a very short time period.
The only plausible way to win with Front Line Defense is against a hyperaggressive enemy ( say Klingon or Zerg ) that throws all their units against your lines suicidally and allow you to walk in unopposed after they all killed themselves. But the question then becomes, why did they let you dig in in the first place?
I think you need to look at frontline defence as a cautious strategy where you focus on ensuring your own defence and limiting your own losses as much as thinking about attack. It isn't just a case of sitting in trenches, but rather than using secure positions from which you can attack and then fall back. Frontline attack is about going all and trying to penetrate to the rear areas. Its like Montgomery vs Patton.
I am comfortable with the distinction now I have made a couple of AI changes to ensure it isn't abused.
As for the build-up before attack, there are many historical example where an army on defence let an enemy build up forces without going on the offensive, even when those forces were fairly close together
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As for the build-up before attack, there are many historical example where an army on defence let an enemy build up forces without going on the offensive, even when those forces were fairly close together
Ukraine comes to mind
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As for the build-up before attack, there are many historical example where an army on defence let an enemy build up forces without going on the offensive, even when those forces were fairly close together
Ukraine comes to mind
I would see that as the situation where both sides are on the same planet but at peace, and have units on front line defense. Then they declare war, and if both sides remain on front line defense one could see that as a trench warfare style fight, or perhaps a slow steady advance (i.e. not Ukraine, at least other than a few parts in Donbas that basically haven't moved the whole war).
I have no real problems with the combat system as it is now, for what it's worth. Is it a perfectly granular simulation? No, of course not. But Aurora is a space strategy game, it doesn't need to be Hearts of Iron too.
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It's easy to forget that there is an operational level between tactical (where individual weapons matter) and strategic (where wars are decided) and that the frontline attack/defence dichotomy is comfortably sitting at that level, not at the tactical one. Especially since a ground combat round is 8 hours long and all movement on the surface of the body are abstracted.
In other words, Aurora does not model tactical combat at all, only operational combat and that is abstracted, not simulated. So, we as players just need to keep that distinction in mind and the problem of conquering a planet while in defensive mode goes away. It's a similar issue with the occasional demand for modelling locomotive types within ground units - the differences don't really matter at the scale of Aurora ground combat - and such details are better left to the imagination of the player as mechanically there's no problem.
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If the AI is programmed to switch to front line attack against an inferior dropped force, wouldn't it be easy to bait the AI out of their formations by sending in a token wave before the main landing?
That is a good point. I'll adjust so only an appropriate number of units change position.
Does the AI consider nearby enemy ships?
It would be possible to land a small force, lure some units out of fortification, then begin orbital bombardment.
It also seems like the AI would be better off having more small formations than a few big ones.
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Is the status of the enemy having units on FA, vs FD, vs Sup vs RE indicated anywhere in the event logs, are are we supposed to be intuiting this somehow? I was just doing some heavy ground combat on 1.13 this weekend and didn't notice anything that would give me clues to understand what the enemy was doing and therefore how I should be adjusting my disposition, but I might've missed it.
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Is the status of the enemy having units on FA, vs FD, vs Sup vs RE indicated anywhere in the event logs, are are we supposed to be intuiting this somehow? I was just doing some heavy ground combat on 1.13 this weekend and didn't notice anything that would give me clues to understand what the enemy was doing and therefore how I should be adjusting my disposition, but I might've missed it.
You can't tell the state of enemy units from the event log, the AI only uses frontline attack or frontline defence for normal (direct fire) units.
The issue arises from players using (or abusing) the support position for direct fire units when they invade.
Based on the discussion about ground combat, I've put a suggestion about it in the suggestions thread.
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10640.msg159662#msg159662
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I see there has been a lengthy discussion about ground combat, truly the greatest tradition of these forums. However, there has been an update and this also merits further discussion:
Raptor-D class Drone Scout
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Missile Box Launcher (8) Missile Size: 4 Hangar Reload 100 minutes MF Reload 16 hours
Graystone GFC-20B Missile Fire Control (1) Range 19.9m km Resolution 120
Active Sensor Drone (4) Speed: 6,250 km/s End: 6.9d Range: 3,750m km WH: 0 Size: 4 TH: 20/12/6
Passive Sensor Drone (4) Speed: 6,250 km/s End: 6.9d Range: 3,750m km WH: 0 Size: 4 TH: 20/12/6
I always find these designs for scouting a bit curious. Of course the idea of sensor drones is quite solid and efficient, but with the box launcher setup I always feel that tweaking the fire controls before every 'shot' is more annoyance than it is worth. For that reason I usually prefer to use a single 30% launcher and a magazine to handle my buoys or drones.
Out of curiosity I thought to run the numbers on this. The 8x size-4 box launchers should total 240 tons in size, while a single size-4 launcher at 30% size would displace 60 tons, and even a base tech 2 HS magazine would have capacity 30 which is enough for the remaining drones and the combination adds up to only 160 tons, and I doubt any extra crew requirement comes out to another 80 tons when summed up. Maybe if you want two launchers (one active, one passive) it comes out to 220 tons plus any extra crew so then it is about even, but arguably more convenient in terms of fire control work.
The costs of taking Caprica IV continues to mount with the loss of a transport. Those ships even if NPR vintage are expensive and time-consuming to build just due to how much armor is needed, so it is a loss deeply felt on the strategic level. Personally though I am enjoying seeing Steve wrestle with the strategic and operational mechanics of planetary invasion even if not an NPR homeworld yet.
The Jungle Mountain terrain is, as Steve has shown, the roughest to fight in - not only because of the low combat hit rates, but even more so because of the slow pace of combat and thus the high logistical cost of doing battle. Hopefully the ruins turn out to be worth the costs.
In the attack on Socrates II, we see the NPRs launching AMMs in offensive mode as the player fleet closes under 500,000 km. I am curious what is the logic behind this decision from the AI? It seems to me that they should fire at maximum range, if they expect any kind of hit, or else not fire if it is a waste of missiles anyways - probably the former, as the latter would mean not putting up a fight in many cases which is lame.
The Captain of Galactica deserves a medal for their excellent performance against ground targets! I suspect he or she has a substantial ground combat skill - nice to see that underappreciated specialty coming in handy.
Colonial Intelligence had only speculation regarding the resurgence in Stave activity.
If I recall correcly, the Stave had some issue with a lack of minerals in their home system, so maybe the situation has become even more dire? Makes as much sense as anything, I think.
And to conclude we have the appearance of the Cylons at long last. Admittedly this is not the spoiler race I would have expected to be named as Cylons, based on my limited knowledge of BSG lore, but this is the race we have on-hand and will do perfectly well. Let's see how this surprising threat to Sol itself plays out - a clash between FAC and fighter swarms is not often seen in Aurora so should be very entertaining!
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Regarding the ground combat discussion, I do think it is a little bit unclear from the terminology, but the mechanics work clearly enough and I cannot readily think of a better set of terminology that encapsulates both the mechanics and flavor (Migi's suggestions are not bad, but are I think too specific and dictate doctrines more than is desirable). Perhaps "Front Line - Positional" and "Front Line - Maneuver" are general enough, though perhaps too technical for the general player base? I'm unsure.
I would second Garfunkel's comment though, many players tend to think of ground combat in tactical terms (which is in fairness most familiar to many who come from a tabletop background, e.g., WH40K or BattleTech) when it is really implemented in operational and strategic terms only. It is an important distinction to keep in mind.
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I always find these designs for scouting a bit curious. Of course the idea of sensor drones is quite solid and efficient, but with the box launcher setup I always feel that tweaking the fire controls before every 'shot' is more annoyance than it is worth. For that reason I usually prefer to use a single 30% launcher and a magazine to handle my buoys or drones.
Yeah I also abandoned box launchers for my survey ships and use heavily reduced launchers. My survey missions usually take several years and survey ships are supported by combined tanker/supply ship that also has some commercial magazines with spare sensor drones. So reduced sized launchers give me more flexibility.
Only carrier in Colonial fleet that has magazines is Valkyrie-M and that has no drones in magazines, but there are also no ammunition carriers in the fleet, so the Raptor-D is bound to planetary rearming anyway. So I suppose for current colonial fleet, there would be no advantage in using reduced launchers.
And to conclude we have the appearance of the Cylons at long last. Admittedly this is not the spoiler race I would have expected to be named as Cylons, based on my limited knowledge of BSG lore, but this is the race we have on-hand and will do perfectly well. Let's see how this surprising threat to Sol itself plays out - a clash between FAC and fighter swarms is not often seen in Aurora so should be very entertaining!
I was also expecting that role of Cylons would be for other spoiler race, but this one is the only one that uses small crafts, so that was most likely reason they got the role of Cylons.
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I also like the limited number of major warships - each one is building up a history and really means something to the campaign. Lots of ships being damaged and surviving.
That is one big reason(hehe) why I used to play only big ship in VB6. Little management, and lots of personality on the ships.
Last year I have been thinking to start a game where every single big ship isn't even a class but completely unique with its own shipyard each. However, in C# I seem to never get there, because there is so much happening and resources+fuel much more scarce to realize complete RP games. I much enjoy those games for their own merits as well though.
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And to conclude we have the appearance of the Cylons at long last. Admittedly this is not the spoiler race I would have expected to be named as Cylons, based on my limited knowledge of BSG lore, but this is the race we have on-hand and will do perfectly well. Let's see how this surprising threat to Sol itself plays out - a clash between FAC and fighter swarms is not often seen in Aurora so should be very entertaining!
I was also expecting that role of Cylons would be for other spoiler race, but this one is the only one that uses small crafts, so that was most likely reason they got the role of Cylons.
The precursors would be closest in lore terms, but they aren't really an offensive threat. It could also have been the invaders, but they can take a long time to appear. The swarm look like they will be an immediate threat and they have a large number of small craft plus a few major warships, plus they are the most 'alien' of the spoilers, so I decided to use 'Cylon' once they appeared.
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To be fair, RP-wise you don't need to stop at just one spoiler race, when deciding who to call the cylons, you could have all of them be different groupings of cylons, which makes them sound like a ubiquitous threat in the galaxy.
Technical question: Is the galactic map one screenshot or is it several images stitched together?
I have the same question. Are the galactic map screenshots taken with a big resolution, maybe with a sideways monitor, or is there some sort of button to export a full screenshot of the galactic map that I don't know about?
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Technical question: Is the galactic map one screenshot or is it several images stitched together?
I have the same question. Are the galactic map screenshots taken with a big resolution, maybe with a sideways monitor, or is there some sort of button to export a full screenshot of the galactic map that I don't know about?
I did several screenshots and put them together in MS Paint.
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I have the same question. Are the galactic map screenshots taken with a big resolution, maybe with a sideways monitor, or is there some sort of button to export a full screenshot of the galactic map that I don't know about?
Unfortunately spreading the window across multiple monitors exposes at least one bug:
http://db48x.net/Aurora/map%20clipping%20is%20weird.png
I think it is trying to avoid drawing anything that won’t be seen, which is sensible, but accidentally using the screen size rather than the window size to do it.
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On February 28th 2312, the Skywatch station on the Sol – Proxima jump point detected the transit of six small ships: three Termagaunts, two Hormagaunts and a Spinegaunt, all from the hostile alien race encountered in Scylla. The aliens had originated from the Cyrene system, adjacent to Scylla, and had generated the usual colloquial names from Colonial crews before a consensus was reached on ‘Cylons’. They had been regarded as a distant and lower-priority threat as Scylla was in a remote part of known space, with three transits to the small Aquaria colony and five to the Leonis and Sagittaron colonies. Skywatch stations had been established on the Dracon – Scylla and Cymbeline – Scylla jump points to monitor any Cylon movement out of the system and a recon mission in January 2311 had confirmed their forces were still close to the Scylla – Cyrene jump point. Somehow, the Cylons had found a way into Proxima, without detection by any Colonial forces prior to their entry into the Sol system.
I found this a bit confusing, at first I thought the Cylons entered Proxima from Sol, but then you did a re-survey of Proxima not Sol.
In two volleys, it disabled the Skywatch’s active sensor and both passive sensors. The alien ships vanished from Colonial tactical displays. Moments later, it was struck by the Termagaunts’ laser weapons and blown to pieces.
Do you still get intel on weapon loadout despite the sensors being destroyed, or did you already know the armament?
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I'm somewhat disappointed that the innards of The Swarm/Cylons follow traditional naming schema - it'd be more flavorful if they had various organs that accomplished the same functions.
Otherwise, I must say - quite the show! Lots going on in this game, makes for good reading.
Edit: Oh, and just because I'm curious - can you actually do anything with those captured Cylons? I imagine that, at very least, they'd require a complete rebuild to include human-friendly supplies, but it'd be neat if you could - I'm imagining something like the Lexx or Moya.
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I'm somewhat disappointed that the innards of The Swarm/Cylons follow traditional naming schema - it'd be more flavorful if they had various organs that accomplished the same functions.
Otherwise, I must say - quite the show! Lots going on in this game, makes for good reading.
Edit: Oh, and just because I'm curious - can you actually do anything with those captured Cylons? I imagine that, at very least, they'd require a complete rebuild to include human-friendly supplies, but it'd be neat if you could - I'm imagining something like the Lexx or Moya.
I was imagining it would be possible to scrap the ships and refit the alien engines onto a one-of-a-kind scout destroyer or something like that.
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I was imagining it would be possible to scrap the ships and refit the alien engines onto a one-of-a-kind scout destroyer or something like that.
This is what I would do. Cylon ships lack any fuel or maintenance due to the unique mechanics of their race, and creating the necessary space for these things would probably require significant revisions to the designs in a refit anyways. Plus, salvage ships specifically aren't ideal in a military-engine configuration.
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On February 28th 2312, the Skywatch station on the Sol – Proxima jump point detected the transit of six small ships: three Termagaunts, two Hormagaunts and a Spinegaunt, all from the hostile alien race encountered in Scylla. The aliens had originated from the Cyrene system, adjacent to Scylla, and had generated the usual colloquial names from Colonial crews before a consensus was reached on ‘Cylons’. They had been regarded as a distant and lower-priority threat as Scylla was in a remote part of known space, with three transits to the small Aquaria colony and five to the Leonis and Sagittaron colonies. Skywatch stations had been established on the Dracon – Scylla and Cymbeline – Scylla jump points to monitor any Cylon movement out of the system and a recon mission in January 2311 had confirmed their forces were still close to the Scylla – Cyrene jump point. Somehow, the Cylons had found a way into Proxima, without detection by any Colonial forces prior to their entry into the Sol system.
I found this a bit confusing, at first I thought the Cylons entered Proxima from Sol, but then you did a re-survey of Proxima not Sol.
In two volleys, it disabled the Skywatch’s active sensor and both passive sensors. The alien ships vanished from Colonial tactical displays. Moments later, it was struck by the Termagaunts’ laser weapons and blown to pieces.
Do you still get intel on weapon loadout despite the sensors being destroyed, or did you already know the armament?
When I refer to jump points, I always use the current system name first. So the Sol - Proxima jump point is in Sol and the Proxima - Sol jump point is in Proxima. In this case "the Skywatch station on the Sol – Proxima jump point detected the transit", so the station in Sol detected a transit from Proxima.
Information on the Termagaunt's weapons was gained in an earlier engagement.
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I'm somewhat disappointed that the innards of The Swarm/Cylons follow traditional naming schema - it'd be more flavorful if they had various organs that accomplished the same functions.
Otherwise, I must say - quite the show! Lots going on in this game, makes for good reading.
Edit: Oh, and just because I'm curious - can you actually do anything with those captured Cylons? I imagine that, at very least, they'd require a complete rebuild to include human-friendly supplies, but it'd be neat if you could - I'm imagining something like the Lexx or Moya.
I scrapped the undamaged one and disassembled the components for research purposes. I repaired the damaged one and then scrapped it :)
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Could we get a map legend of the various races' flags? There's so many now!
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That is one busy galactic neighbourhood!
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Where did the Agamemnon system on the galactic map come from? I thought it might be the homeworld of the raiders, but it looks like it has jump points, unlike the homeworld.
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Where did the Agamemnon system on the galactic map come from? I thought it might be the homeworld of the raiders, but it looks like it has jump points, unlike the homeworld.
I would assume it has been intel from interrogating captured ship crew (probably Stave as they are the only non-spoiler race Steve is at war with) as systems can be one of the intel items received.
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Could we get a map legend of the various races' flags? There's so many now!
Here, I made a quick one:
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/504754524079259678/964197177104662558/unknown.png)
I would assume it has been intel from interrogating captured ship crew (probably Stave as they are the only non-spoiler race Steve is at war with) as systems can be one of the intel items received.
Oh, nice, that could be it. I didn't think of that.
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Where did the Agamemnon system on the galactic map come from? I thought it might be the homeworld of the raiders, but it looks like it has jump points, unlike the homeworld.
It's probably just a newly discovered system but Steve forgot to refresh the map before taking a screenshot.
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Where did the Agamemnon system on the galactic map come from? I thought it might be the homeworld of the raiders, but it looks like it has jump points, unlike the homeworld.
I would assume it has been intel from interrogating captured ship crew (probably Stave as they are the only non-spoiler race Steve is at war with) as systems can be one of the intel items received.
Yes, that's correct.
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Sorry for asking such a silly question, but where is the map you are talking about? I looked for it for 10 minutes and could not find it :/ May I ask for directions or a link perhaps? Thanks in advance!
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Sorry for asking such a silly question, but where is the map you are talking about? I looked for it for 10 minutes and could not find it :/ May I ask for directions or a link perhaps? Thanks in advance!
It's the last image at the bottom of the post
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In the case that your browser has trouble displaying it as part of the page and/or post, which is possible, here is a direct link you can open in a new tab or window, or just download it to your computer:
http://www.pentarch.org/steve/Screenshots/BSG099.PNG
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I tried to open the link on 3 different browsers, still does not work :/ It is really strange, as in previous campaigns I could see all the maps and other stuff. Now those are gone too :/ Downloading does not work too.
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I tried to open the link on 3 different browsers, still does not work :/ It is really strange, as in previous campaigns I could see all the maps and other stuff. Now those are gone too :/ Downloading does not work too.
Played around with the link, And I got myself into the index itself. Then I manually found the screenshot I was looking for. Thanks for your help ^^.
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I tried to open the link on 3 different browsers, still does not work :/ It is really strange, as in previous campaigns I could see all the maps and other stuff. Now those are gone too :/ Downloading does not work too.
If you don't see any pictures on the forum, you probably have "https" in the URL. You need to remove that "s" to make images show up.
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Or the browser automatically blocks pictures from not-https sites.
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Steve, can you regale us with tales of some of the bugs you’ve discovered recently?
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Steve, can you regale us with tales of some of the bugs you’ve discovered recently?
Yesterday I noticed explosion and EW impact contacts were no longer appearing on the map. That turned out to be due to the new 1-second pulses, because the interrupt associated with the explosion didn't stop the game in the middle of a 5-second interrupt, so the explosion contact was removed when time moved on again.
I've been playing quite a lot lately as the current campaign is very interesting, but still finding a few bugs. However, I have a lot of holidays coming up in the next couple of months. 10-day and 14-day trips in the motorhome and a 9-day boating holiday, plus TT fortnight on the island, all before the end of June, so I think it is unlikely (but not impossible) v2.0 is happening now before July, despite my earlier optimism.
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However, I have a lot of holidays coming up in the next couple of months. 10-day and 14-day trips in the motorhome and a 9-day boating holiday, plus TT fortnight on the island, all before the end of June, so I think it is unlikely (but not impossible) v2.0 is happening now before July, despite my earlier optimism.
Enjoy your holidays!!! Travel safe and have fun.
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...I have a lot of holidays coming up in the next couple of months. 10-day and 14-day trips in the motorhome and a 9-day boating holiday, plus TT fortnight on the island, all before the end of June, so I think it is unlikely (but not impossible) v2.0 is happening now before July, despite my earlier optimism.
Yes!
I started a 1.13 campaign about a month ago, thinking it would just be a short-lived jaunt before 2.0 hit
But I've become enamored with it.
I shouldn't be surprised, I guess.
I've yet to start an Aurora campaign that I did not become enamored with.
So, the Federal Republic of Othrys cordially wishes you good travels.
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Yesterday I noticed explosion and EW impact contacts were no longer appearing on the map. That turned out to be due to the new 1-second pulses, because the interrupt associated with the explosion didn't stop the game in the middle of a 5-second interrupt, so the explosion contact was removed when time moved on again.
And that’s something you’ll only likely notice if you’re actually in combat, which bodes well for the next update.
But I notice that is is only a singular story! I bet you have more…
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...I have a lot of holidays coming up in the next couple of months. 10-day and 14-day trips in the motorhome and a 9-day boating holiday, plus TT fortnight on the island, all before the end of June, so I think it is unlikely (but not impossible) v2.0 is happening now before July, despite my earlier optimism.
Yes!
I started a 1.13 campaign about a month ago, thinking it would just be a short-lived jaunt before 2.0 hit
But I've become enamored with it.
I shouldn't be surprised, I guess.
I've yet to start an Aurora campaign that I did not become enamored with.
So, the Federal Republic of Othrys cordially wishes you good travels.
I am in some sort of sunk cost fallacy. My point of view is that investing in a new 1.13 campaign is pointless, as 2.0 brings so many new features and is right around the corner -- for 6 month now. I know that Steve is just trolling me personally and will drop the new version two days after I give up waiting. He is just that kind of a guy.
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I think it is unlikely (but not impossible) v2.0 is happening now before July, despite my earlier optimism.
From one side im happy that the game progressing, bugs are being squashed and you having much fun with it. :)
From another side it makes me sad knowing that it will not come soon enough to get distracted, as its the only game I like that can run on my laptop I grabbed when was leaving home behind. :'(
Anyway, looking forward to new version whenever it comes, and thanks for regular campaign updates!
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Hey Steve, maybe it won't work with the 2.0 database, but I would love to know what that huge galactic map looks like when you view it in the map tab of this utility:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=12292.0
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A lot of things happening on a lot of fronts, the galaxy is clearly very busy even if individual fronts are moving more slowly as a result of the compressed timeframes and increasingly thin Colonial deployments.
Possible bug note: in one screenshot of the Aeolus encounter, there is a Dragonscale-class freighter labeled as "FT-00" this looks like a class series number gone wrong? Should either be the proper series number or just omitted if series numbering is turned off for the freighter class?
I note with interest that near the end of the update we see the Colonial Marines transition from 5,000-ton battalions to 20,000-ton regiments as the base combat formation. I wonder what has motivated this, is this a needed change to combat a shortage of leaders or just to cut down on micromanagement?
The galaxy map is looking quite involved now - and it should, after 15 years I think this is one of Steve's longest-running C# campaigns? Certainly out of the TN start campaigns at least. I'm hoping that we start to see survey ships finding multiple routes into different parts of the alien empires to really turn up the strategic tension!
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Question:
What would happen if a player would try to capture the raider ship by boarding, but before that happen raider ship would transit to their home system. Then the marines take the ship. Can they get back or are they stranded in the raider system?
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I wonder how fighter supplies are, and if maybe the Colonies could make up for their lack of Battlestars by replacing colony garrisons with fighter squadrons (maybe supplemented by ground units). Particularly the older, slower fighters.
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Steve's already doing that to an extent - he noted that some colonies had Marine regiments and independent Viper squadrons.
Time to bring the fight to the Stave! Nice to see the AI consolidating fleets, or at least trying to do so.
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Steve (or others with fighter experience), you commented in the update thread that one group of fighters were highly trained and experienced almost no delay in targeting/retargeting. How did they achieve that high training? Did you actively train them, or did they accumulate it through time and combat experience?
I'm accumulating fighters while my carriers are out working (fighting) and I tried training the fighters. They ran out of fuel almost immediately, even when I tried the somewhat hokey trick of putting a slower ship in the fleet. I could add a tanker, but they'd still be burning through fuel at an insane rate.
EDIT: right after I posted this, I realized that you may be training the fighters while they're docked in the carrier. If that's the case, please confirm.
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EDIT: right after I posted this, I realized that you may be training the fighters while they're docked in the carrier. If that's the case, please confirm.
I can confirm that this doesn't really help. The fighters simply drain fuel from the carrier in this case, so you will not run out of fuel as quickly but still often enough that it is very annoying to try and train them.
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They have been active long enough for the background fleet training to take effect.
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EDIT: right after I posted this, I realized that you may be training the fighters while they're docked in the carrier. If that's the case, please confirm.
I can confirm that this doesn't really help. The fighters simply drain fuel from the carrier in this case, so you will not run out of fuel as quickly but still often enough that it is very annoying to try and train them.
Would adding a big tanker to the fleet, set to "refuel own fleet" help with this?
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Would adding a big tanker to the fleet, set to "refuel own fleet" help with this?
Possibly. I'm not sure (1) how the order would interact with the training mission, and (2) if it would be fast enough. You also still have the problem of maintenance failures blowing up fighters if they're not in a hangar.
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Make a training command, put fighters inside a carrier, move carrier under the training command with a tanker set to refuel own fleet.
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Make a training command, put fighters inside a carrier, move carrier under the training command with a tanker set to refuel own fleet.
also add a Supply ship set to Resupply own fleet (handles the maint failures assuming that all ships have at least enough MSP to repair the largest component on each ship). I usually set this up for all my major fleets, and have these as a separate sub-fleet (along with an ammo collier) that can be detached before advancing into combat. You do have to reset the Supply ship status periodically (at least after every save) as for some reason the status keeps reverting to No Resupply.
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I started a new thread to address the fighter training fuel cost discussion, so we can continue that conversation without taking the Twelve Colonies Comments thread on too big a tangent.
Looking forward to the next story update!
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No comments yet? Wow, some people don't know how to have fun...
Introductory paragraph highlights one of the big downsides of carrier fleets. While fighter swarms can be powerful and, as shown, tactically more efficient than missiles, and of course strategically very sound, the ability to press an offensive against a tough defense is very limited without... cooperation from the opponent. Of course, you've got a shockingly "cooperative" NPR, as we read, and also battlestars with integral armament which can execute a WP assault reasonably well on their own, at least long enough to launch the fighters.
In November, the Twelve Colonies launched the first Odysseus class Survey Cruiser, a new ship type intended for long-duration survey missions. [...] Production of the Odysseus class would gradually free up the four survey-configured Valkyrie II class Battlestars for combat assignments.
I'm curious Steve - is this move being done largely because of the need for Valkyries on the front lines, or because you've found survey parasites to be more trouble than they're worth? I recently tried using survey parasites in a campaign which I abandoned fairly quickly, mostly because survey operations were a pain in the butt as there's no way to automate the process of recalling parasites, moving to a new system, and issuing the exact same standing orders another half-dozen times.
The rather shocking Stave counter-attack proved quite ill-conceived. Is this a NPR behavior likely to be corrected before 2.0 release, or more or less WAI? Seems rather suicidal, as long as the attacking race leaves a reserve behind, but could also be considered a high risk/reward move as there is the chance to ambush the logistics train of an assaulting fleet. Didn't work in this case, but I would also note that the Stave are strategically outclassed anyways as they have severe technological and economic deficits by now.
I didn't actually know NPRs knew how to use terraformers, so that was a learning experience for me!
Once within a few million kilometres, Colonial active sensors detected a ground forces signature of 458,900 tons, indicating somewhere between two and three million tons of fortified ground forces. A huge program of increasing Colonial ground forces would be required before any assault could be launched.
Hurry up, I wanna see the first-ever Steve attacking an alien homeworld in an AAR. Not only because I expect it will lead to a lot of ideas to improve ground combat, no, I have interest in the ground attack for its own sake too... ;)
A bit surprised to see the Stave shipyards destroyed. I suppose it makes sense here, since the Colonial Union doesn't need a lot of shipyards to build Battlestars at the rate their economy allows, but still it is a lot of yards to let go to waste (I can't remember if the conversion factor is 20x or 50x, but that 78,000 ton signature is either 1,560,000 or 3,900,000 tons of slipway space, right?).
Across known space, one jump beyond the survey base in Electra, the survey cruiser Odysseus transited a jump point in the Odessos system and discovered Hydra, a red dwarf system with a single Venusian world. On the far side of Hydra from the entry jump point was a strange, never-before-encountered, phenomenon; a swirling, dark purple vortex with a diameter of ten million kilometres. It appeared be a rift that penetrated both normal space and the Aether. As soon as news of the discovery arrived at Earth, a tug was dispatched with an Outpost sensor station that would monitor the rift.
On July 8th 2316, one month after the discovery of the mysterious rift in the Hydra system, a similar rift was discovered in Sphinx, four transits from the Sparta colony via Orpheus, Rho Leporis and Delphi.
Things are about to get really exciting around here... ;D
A great update, Steve. Overall a lot of excitement and action, but we've reached the point in the game where the action is all along major threads instead of the disjointed chaos of early game. The galaxy is taking shape quite nicely and I anticipate some interesting strategic challenges ahead for the Twelve Colonies.
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The rather shocking Stave counter-attack proved quite ill-conceived. Is this a NPR behavior likely to be corrected before 2.0 release, or more or less WAI? Seems rather suicidal, as long as the attacking race leaves a reserve behind, but could also be considered a high risk/reward move as there is the chance to ambush the logistics train of an assaulting fleet. Didn't work in this case, but I would also note that the Stave are strategically outclassed anyways as they have severe technological and economic deficits by now.
I'd wager the AI was attempting to retreat rather than counter-attack, having decided the attacking fighter force was too much to handle. I'm not sure how such behavior could be corrected (if indeed it's actually "wrong" - despite the outcome in this case being objectively wrong from the AI's perspective!) without causing other problems - AI's pressing hopeless attacks rather than strategically retreating, as one example.
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The rather shocking Stave counter-attack proved quite ill-conceived. Is this a NPR behavior likely to be corrected before 2.0 release, or more or less WAI? Seems rather suicidal, as long as the attacking race leaves a reserve behind, but could also be considered a high risk/reward move as there is the chance to ambush the logistics train of an assaulting fleet. Didn't work in this case, but I would also note that the Stave are strategically outclassed anyways as they have severe technological and economic deficits by now.
I'd wager the AI was attempting to retreat rather than counter-attack, having decided the attacking fighter force was too much to handle. I'm not sure how such behavior could be corrected (if indeed it's actually "wrong" - despite the outcome in this case being objectively wrong from the AI's perspective!) without causing other problems - AI's pressing hopeless attacks rather than strategically retreating, as one example.
If I didn't have heavily-armed motherships and mostly 100% crews, that battle might have gone very differently. I don't think it is necessarily a terrible tactic when confronted by a large enemy force - it just turned out to be terrible in that situation. I think the underlying issues may be that the AI places too much weight on speed when assessing the threat level of its opponents, which is exaggerated when facing fighters, plus it doesn't decrease threat assessment in the immediate aftermath of a transit. On that basis, it took the option to 'retreat' through the jump point. I'll make some adjustments in that area.
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No comments yet? Wow, some people don't know how to have fun...
Introductory paragraph highlights one of the big downsides of carrier fleets. While fighter swarms can be powerful and, as shown, tactically more efficient than missiles, and of course strategically very sound, the ability to press an offensive against a tough defense is very limited without... cooperation from the opponent. Of course, you've got a shockingly "cooperative" NPR, as we read, and also battlestars with integral armament which can execute a WP assault reasonably well on their own, at least long enough to launch the fighters.
In November, the Twelve Colonies launched the first Odysseus class Survey Cruiser, a new ship type intended for long-duration survey missions. [...] Production of the Odysseus class would gradually free up the four survey-configured Valkyrie II class Battlestars for combat assignments.
I'm curious Steve - is this move being done largely because of the need for Valkyries on the front lines, or because you've found survey parasites to be more trouble than they're worth? I recently tried using survey parasites in a campaign which I abandoned fairly quickly, mostly because survey operations were a pain in the butt as there's no way to automate the process of recalling parasites, moving to a new system, and issuing the exact same standing orders another half-dozen times.
The rather shocking Stave counter-attack proved quite ill-conceived. Is this a NPR behavior likely to be corrected before 2.0 release, or more or less WAI? Seems rather suicidal, as long as the attacking race leaves a reserve behind, but could also be considered a high risk/reward move as there is the chance to ambush the logistics train of an assaulting fleet. Didn't work in this case, but I would also note that the Stave are strategically outclassed anyways as they have severe technological and economic deficits by now.
I didn't actually know NPRs knew how to use terraformers, so that was a learning experience for me!
Once within a few million kilometres, Colonial active sensors detected a ground forces signature of 458,900 tons, indicating somewhere between two and three million tons of fortified ground forces. A huge program of increasing Colonial ground forces would be required before any assault could be launched.
Hurry up, I wanna see the first-ever Steve attacking an alien homeworld in an AAR. Not only because I expect it will lead to a lot of ideas to improve ground combat, no, I have interest in the ground attack for its own sake too... ;)
A bit surprised to see the Stave shipyards destroyed. I suppose it makes sense here, since the Colonial Union doesn't need a lot of shipyards to build Battlestars at the rate their economy allows, but still it is a lot of yards to let go to waste (I can't remember if the conversion factor is 20x or 50x, but that 78,000 ton signature is either 1,560,000 or 3,900,000 tons of slipway space, right?).
Across known space, one jump beyond the survey base in Electra, the survey cruiser Odysseus transited a jump point in the Odessos system and discovered Hydra, a red dwarf system with a single Venusian world. On the far side of Hydra from the entry jump point was a strange, never-before-encountered, phenomenon; a swirling, dark purple vortex with a diameter of ten million kilometres. It appeared be a rift that penetrated both normal space and the Aether. As soon as news of the discovery arrived at Earth, a tug was dispatched with an Outpost sensor station that would monitor the rift.
On July 8th 2316, one month after the discovery of the mysterious rift in the Hydra system, a similar rift was discovered in Sphinx, four transits from the Sparta colony via Orpheus, Rho Leporis and Delphi.
Things are about to get really exciting around here... ;D
A great update, Steve. Overall a lot of excitement and action, but we've reached the point in the game where the action is all along major threads instead of the disjointed chaos of early game. The galaxy is taking shape quite nicely and I anticipate some interesting strategic challenges ahead for the Twelve Colonies.
The survey cruisers are to free up the Valkyries from long-ranged exploration. I'm actually still building some survey parasites, but they are being based at colonies now instead of Battlestars. The Raptors are shorter-ranged so they are 'filling in' rather than going further into deep space.
The destruction of the shipyards was so I could get away with stationing a relatively small force to monitor the Stave until I could assemble a real invasion force. Even if I left them intact, it would be many years before I could launch an assault that would capture them.
I've covered the 'counter-attack in the post above.
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If I didn't have heavily-armed motherships and mostly 100% crews, that battle might have gone very differently. I don't think it is necessarily a terrible tactic when confronted by a large enemy force - it just turned out to be terrible in that situation. I think the underlying issues may be that the AI places too much weight on speed when assessing the threat level of its opponents, which is exaggerated when facing fighters, plus it doesn't decrease threat assessment in the immediate aftermath of a transit. On that basis, it took the option to 'retreat' through the jump point. I'll make some adjustments in that area.
I certainly think it cold be a tactic with merits. Granted, as a human player I would probably not make a blind jump without better intelligence of some sort, but given some idea what to expect it is potentially a good way to make an ambush happen or raid the enemy to flip the tables.
One thing that does sometimes confuse me with the AI though is the definition of "retreat" is often in the opposite direction from their base or colony. Seems a bit odd although in this case I suppose the Stave had another up-to-15 heavy cruisers to defend their home world, so it would work out if they weren't just plain overmatched.
In any case always glad to see AI improvements, 2.0 is shaping up to be one of the best updates yet for single-player campaigns!
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I was really enjoying this, does the carrier QOL update mean this story is over?
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I was really enjoying this, does the carrier QOL update mean this story is over?
Yes, this AAR is done now. I've recently started another test campaign for the more recent changes and I'll publish updates from that at some point.