Post by: UnLimiTeD on March 29, 2010, 08:03:43 PM
Now that I got a missile design that can ignore defenses^^
1. Will a Beam weapons accuracy go down by more if both systems have a lower tracking speed instead of just one?
Aka, is there any reason to build a turret with 200k tracking speed if the bfc can only track a 100?
2. Can a ship with two Tractor beams actually transport two "objects" at the same time, or is it just a useless combat save?
3.Are there any ways to augment ablative armor, or is ECM just plain better at high levels?
4. Why the hell are Railguns the only Weapon you can't put in Turrets?
Post by: Shadow on March 29, 2010, 08:52:08 PM
Quote from: "UnLimiTeD"
Taking the risk to post thrice, I'll post some more questions instead of making new threads.1. A weapon's tracking speed is limited by its own or its associated fire control's. Whichever is lower. So no, I don't think there's any reason for that.
Now that I got a missile design that can ignore defenses^^
1. Will a Beam weapons accuracy go down by more if both systems have a lower tracking speed instead of just one?
Aka, is there any reason to build a turret with 200k tracking speed if the bfc can only track a 100?
2. Can a ship with two Tractor beams actually transport two "objects" at the same time, or is it just a useless combat save?
3.Are there any ways to augment ablative armor, or is ECM just plain better at high levels?
4. Why the hell are Railguns the only Weapon you can't put in Turrets?
2. No, I don't think so. One object per tractor ship. The tractor interface itself doesn't seem to have room for more than one object.
3. I believe armour technology decreases the amount of MSP each missile armour level requires.
4. No clue. What's the problem with that?
Post by: Andrew on March 30, 2010, 04:10:15 AM
Quote from: "UnLimiTeD"
They are not I don't think Plasma Carronades can go in turrets, or Torpedo's
4. Why the hell are Railguns the only Weapon you can't put in Turrets?
Post by: UnLimiTeD on March 30, 2010, 06:30:24 AM
I never think of torpedoes as actual beam weapons^^.
Still sad, railguns would make good anti-fighter weapons.
Well, I think one point of Missile MSP always yields one point of armor, so I guess I won't bother with it then.
As ECM appearently makes invulnerable, I'll shift my Jumppoint scouting and the like to buoys and drones.
And I'll save a lot of Resources not making turrets with higher tracking speed than my BFCs.
Post by: Brian Neumann on March 30, 2010, 09:29:52 AM
Quote from: "UnLimiTeD"
Oh, your right.
I never think of torpedoes as actual beam weapons^^.
Still sad, railguns would make good anti-fighter weapons.
Well, I think one point of Missile MSP always yields one point of armor, so I guess I won't bother with it then.
As ECM appearently makes invulnerable, I'll shift my Jumppoint scouting and the like to buoys and drones.
And I'll save a lot of Resources not making turrets with higher tracking speed than my BFCs.
1.) Torpedo's are treated as beam weapons in this game, but I know what you mean.
2.) Railguns are actually quite good against fighters/fac that get into range. The problem is that most fighters are missile armed so you will rarely get the chance to shoot at them with beam weapons.
3.) Missile ecm can be countered by a ships eccm. Yes you can put more ecm on the missile, but that would use a lot of the missile space up and generally make it much less effective at hitting your targets or damaging them.
4.) As for the tracking speed of your turrets. When you are designing them, see how much faster you can get the turret without adding extra hull spaces. I find that I can get a turret that is about 1/2 way to the next tracking speed level a lot of the time. When you upgrade your ships it will give you a choice about only refitting the fire control for a limited upgrade, or upgrading both. Sometimes it can make the difference of being able to upgrade the ship or not due to the cost of the refit.
Brian
Post by: UnLimiTeD on March 30, 2010, 09:54:38 AM
A) The Maximum range of an 80cm Far Gamma Ray Laser is over 20m, the maximum range of a size 4 BFC is 1.4m.
I thinks thats damn pointless, to say the least.Even an 80cm Infrared Laser will have more range that the best BFC you can build for it.
Am I missing something here?
B)
Code: [Select]
Missile Size: 15 MSP (0.75 HS) Warhead: 120 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 71
Speed: 90000 km/s Endurance: 37 minutes Range: 200.0m km
Active Sensor Strength: 21.0006 Resolution: 15 Maximum Range: 3,150,090 km
ECM Level: 20
Cost Per Missile: 85.0256
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 6390% 3k km/s 2130% 5k km/s 1278% 10k km/s 639%
Materials Required: 10x Corbomite 30x Tritanium 21.0006x Uridium 45.25x Gallicite Fuel x4166.5Seems totally reasonable, good speed, can reliably (always) hit enemy ships moving up to 50k speed, unhitabel with ECCM-10.
Also mounts a powerful Sensor.
-Sure, for that ECM I could mounts 60 more warhead, I most certainly agree, but that would mean to expect the enemy has no missile defenses whatsoever.
Atleast it's better than Armor.
C) It seems at higher techlevels it becomes increasingly difficult to kill missiles without AMMs.
D) Are the missiles that come with a ship really "free"?
thanks for all the answers you've given me so far!
Post by: Hawkeye on March 30, 2010, 10:08:42 AM
Quote from: "UnLimiTeD"
Just did a test at highest test level and noticed several things:
A) The Maximum range of an 80cm Far Gamma Ray Laser is over 20m, the maximum range of a size 4 BFC is 1.4m.
I thinks thats damn pointless, to say the least.Even an 80cm Infrared Laser will have more range that the best BFC you can build for it.
Am I missing something here?
Not realy.
The limit on FC is due to Steve not wanting to have to start tracking beams over several 5-second-increments (speed of light x 5 seconds = 1.5 mio km, basicly).
Also, as mentioned somewhere else before, if you want to go realy realistic, beams would not hit anything beyond, say, 300.000km.
Imagine, you target an enemy ship at 300.000 km. The ship can manouver at 100g. Your beam needs 1 seconds to reach the target. In that second, your target can be at any point of a "circle" with a radius of 500m (100g = aproximately 1000m/s^2). Lets assume the ship is spheric in form and has a diameter of 100m. A 100m ship, anywhere in a 1000m circle gives you a 1% chance to hit the ship anywhere. At longer ranges, the to-hit-chance gets abysimal real fast.
Ad in the fact that in Aurora there is no inertial (due to trans-newton technology), and hitting anything with a laser is bloody much impossible
Post by: UnLimiTeD on March 30, 2010, 10:57:40 AM
But whats the point in getting Far Gamma Rays in that case, PDs don't really need it, huge lasers can't use it.
Also, if we go by speed of light, everything above 1.5m distance should be shown where it was an increment before, and hey, we don't do that, either....
Wouldn't make sense as it would make missile guidance totally impossible.
Another question yet:
Code: [Select]
Damage Per Shot (4): 9 Rate of Fire: 5 seconds Range Modifier: 7
Max Range 630,000 km Railgun Size: 10 HS Railgun HTK: 5
Power Requirement: 27 Power Recharge per 5 Secs: 25Got a Railgun (max techlevel, still testing) that requires 27 energy, gets only 25, still fires every 5 seconds.
I don't get it, what am I missing?
Post by: Hawkeye on March 30, 2010, 11:40:49 AM
Quote from: "UnLimiTeD"
Ok, so far, I get that.
But whats the point in getting Far Gamma Rays in that case, PDs don't really need it, huge lasers can't use it.
Also, if we go by speed of light, everything above 1.5m distance should be shown where it was an increment before, and hey, we don't do that, either....
Wouldn't make sense as it would make missile guidance totally impossible.
Well, at max range, your laser deals 1 pt of damage. I don´t know how much your far gamma ray laser will do at 1.4 mkm, but it will be alot more than 1 pt, I assume
So, the range in itself does you no good, but you will deal a lot more damage at max FC-range than with a lower tech laser
As for sensor lag, it is assumed, the sensors are FTL (yes, technobabble, but hey, you have to simplify _some_ things) while a laser is still a laser, even with trans-newton tech.
Quote from: "UnLimiTeD"
Another question yet:Code: [Select]Damage Per Shot (4): 9 Rate of Fire: 5 seconds Range Modifier: 7
Max Range 630,000 km Railgun Size: 10 HS Railgun HTK: 5
Power Requirement: 27 Power Recharge per 5 Secs: 25
Got a Railgun (max techlevel, still testing) that requires 27 energy, gets only 25, still fires every 5 seconds.
I don't get it, what am I missing?
Seems like a bug to me, might want to post it in the bugs forum.
Post by: Andrew on March 30, 2010, 11:44:45 AM
Quote from: "UnLimiTeD"
Just did a test at highest test level and noticed several things:No, but
D) Are the missiles that come with a ship really "free"?
thanks for all the answers you've given me so far!
If you press the load ships button they are indeed free , but that is meant for startup so your starting ships have missiles. Otherwise ships will try to fill their magazines to the selected load out from what missiles you have on the planet they are built at.
Post by: UnLimiTeD on March 30, 2010, 03:55:18 PM
Edit:
So, I don't quite know if this is a bug or me failing, but I ordered 2 Task Groups of different player races to waypoints close to each other in the asteroid belt behind mars, assigned Fire controls...
Then I noticed I need them in different Task groups to be able to split them and let the Beam Warships Attack.
I made a bunch of new task groups for either side, and moved the ships inside.
Now side A, which I did second, is perfectly fine, everything is in place and awaiting battle.
In side B, however, only the Original Battle Task Group is in place, all new Task Groups have had their new inhabitants teleported back to Titan where the fleet originated.
The Active Sensor Display proofs they were indeed in the asteroid belt before, and now, only a single missile cruiser remains in combat range....
Edit2: Posted too early, side A got teleported back aside the main Missile Cruisers aswell.
I forwarded an hour, 30 seconds actually happened, and all ships back at earth show speeds of 342k+ kms on sensors, like they physically moved back on their own volition.
I believe if I forwarded only 5 seconds, it would show 6x that much.
Any experience with that kind of behavior ?
Post by: Andrew on March 30, 2010, 05:38:16 PM
Post by: UnLimiTeD on March 30, 2010, 06:09:52 PM
Post by: sloanjh on March 31, 2010, 01:08:52 AM
Quote from: "Andrew"
It sounds like the newly created task groups where in the location the ships are now in rather than with the fleet you thought they where with and when you moved the ships between TG they teleported to the location of the task group.
Yep - it sounds from your description like you might be running with SM mode on (which is usually a bad idea, 'cuz it lets you do all sorts of unnatural things). In SM mode, you can transfer units between non-colocated TG, causing the ships to magically teleport to the new location. You should usually use the "Split TG" button (on the 2nd tab of F12 screen) if you want to break a TG up into pieces. I almost never use the "New TG" button, 'cuz it doesn't necessarily put the new TG at the location the ships you're interested in are at (I think it puts it at your home world). As of recent versions, you can also make new TG using the fleet organization (4th) tab of the F12 screen.
John
Post by: UnLimiTeD on March 31, 2010, 08:22:07 PM
Mesons are quire the Shizzle.
Some ask for advice:
How would you actually fight the following two when used against you?
Code: [Select]
Missile Size: 10 MSP (0.5 HS) Warhead: 80 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 43
Speed: 43200 km/s Endurance: 19 minutes Range: 50.4m km
ECM Level: 20
Cost Per Missile: 38.0171
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 1857.6% 3k km/s 602% 5k km/s 371.5% 10k km/s 185.8%
Materials Required: 10x Corbomite 20x Tritanium 15.0673x Gallicite Fuel x1049.25
Buoy Size: 7.5 MSP (0.375 HS) Armour: 0
Reactor Endurance: 24 months
Active Sensor Strength: 20 Resolution: 10 Maximum Range: 2,000,000 km
ECM Level: 20
Cost Per Buoy: 35.625
Materials Required: 10x Corbomite 4.8x Boronide 20x Uridium
These are NOT at maximum tech level, mind you.
Post by: Brian Neumann on April 01, 2010, 06:21:34 AM
The bouy is just going to sit there and scan for you. Probably not much you can do to prevent it from spotting you. Your best chance would be a fighter strike with one fighter having a radar to spot it and several carrying two stage missiles. The second stage being equipped with em sensors and fired from short range. The first stage being a bus to get close from long range.
Brian
Post by: Andrew on April 01, 2010, 06:42:49 AM
The warhead is also very big and I would probably have more speed or range and a smaller warhead.
If I specifically new my opponent would be using these missiles I would deploy a fleet of gunboats or fighters so the warhead was overkill, or arsenal ships which could launch a huge salvo before these missiles where in launch range as once their launching ship dies they are harmless
Post by: UnLimiTeD on April 01, 2010, 08:30:28 AM
ECM 20 is actually Missile ECM 200, which gives firecontrols a range in the negatives.
I did another test to confirm, at maximum techlevel:
Code: [Select]
Agincourt class Cruiser 12500 tons 1200 Crew 25681.5 BP TCS 250 TH 5000 EM 9000
20000 km/s Armour 8-47 Shields 300-300 Sensors 75/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 102 PPV 46
Annual Failure Rate: 104% IFR: 1.4% Maint Capacity 15410 MSP Max Repair 5250 MSP Est Time: 1.91 Years
Magazine 816
Photonic Drive E1 (10) Power 500 Fuel Use 10% Signature 500 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 120,000 Litres Range 172.8 billion km (100 days at full power)
Omega R300/15 Shields (20) Total Fuel Cost 300 Litres per day
Triple 15cm C6.25 Far Gamma Ray Laser Turret (2x3) Range 700,000km TS: 111000 km/s Power 18-19 RM 12 ROF 5 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
CIWS-1000 (2x20) Range 1000 km TS: 100000 km/s ROF 5 Base 50% To Hit
Fire Control S08 350-100000 (2) Max Range: 700,000 km TS: 100000 km/s 99 97 96 94 93 91 90 89 87 86
Vacuum Energy Power Plant Technology PB-1 AR-0 (1) Total Power Output 40 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Size 1 Missile Launcher (75% Reduction) (24) Missile Size 1 Rate of Fire 5
Missile Fire Control FC81-R1 (4) Range 81.0m km Resolution 1
Size 1 Anti-missile Missile (816) Speed: 250,000 km/s End: 12m Range: 180m km WH: 3 Size: 1 TH: 10833 / 6500 / 3250
Active Search Sensor MR540-R20 (1) GPS 7200 Range 540.0m km Resolution 20
Active Search Sensor MR40-R1 (1) GPS 540 Range 40.5m km Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH1-75 (1) Sensitivity 75 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 75m km
Compact ECCM-10 (6) ECM 90Should be the nightmare of all Missileboats.
I fired upon them with these, again, maximum tech level:
Code: [Select]
Missile Size: 8 MSP (0.4 HS) Warhead: 90 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 60
Speed: 62500 km/s Endurance: 60 minutes Range: 225.0m km
ECM Level: 20
Cost Per Missile: 42.0833
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 3750% 3k km/s 1200% 5k km/s 750% 10k km/s 375%CIWS give out an "Error in PointBlankPDFire" Error 3265 was....
AMMs don't launch, and The Laser Turrets were able to score a single hit due to crew grade. (9% chance)
Excerpt of the combat log is attached.
Needless to say, it resulted in utter destruction of the target. Well, 20 missiles was probably overkill.
Post by: praguepride on April 01, 2010, 12:32:48 PM
Post by: UnLimiTeD on April 01, 2010, 02:29:42 PM
Aside, they have 2 CIWS....
Post by: Andrew on April 01, 2010, 05:51:02 PM
Quote from: "UnLimiTeD"
Would it have made any difference?You may found a bug that needs fixing however I have yet to actually research technology anywhere close to that limit in play so I could care less for the implications to my games.
Aside, they have 2 CIWS....
Second, the fighter squadrons and long range missiles will still kill the ships launching these (admittedly the long range missiles will have to have the same ecm ) they are still a poor missile design except for exploiting a bug. Congrats.
With the bug I would agree that once you have more tech than I have ever seen missiles are invincible so I would probably end the game at that point, if I did not I would rely on ependable small ships , Gunboats and Fighters. Make use of stealth systems and small sizes to reduce detection range so the missiles cannot be fired, until late and make sure I use fire and forget missiles .
Post by: UnLimiTeD on April 01, 2010, 07:29:30 PM
Just wanted to know if it really is a bug.
I mean, with ECM 5, if your enemy has the same tech level, you can basically just spend 3 MSP on them and they are unhitable until the enemy has ECCM6.
The main problem I see is that they don't need to be fast nor heavy hitting, they will always reach their target, so you can spend your entire resources on good sensors and Anti Missile tech.
I'll post it up in the bug board then.
Post by: sloanjh on April 01, 2010, 08:24:26 PM
Quote from: "UnLimiTeD"
True.Maybe, maybe not. Steve might have had this in mind. After all, that flight of F-15s weren't able to lock up that UFO over Montana at all 6 years ag.....errrr wait, I wasn't supposed to talk about that. Ummmm hypothetically, a flight of F-15s might not be able to lock up on a UFO, if the UFO had advanced enough tech
Just wanted to know if it really is a bug.
Quote
I mean, with ECM 5, if your enemy has the same tech level, you can basically just spend 3 MSP on them and they are unhitable until the enemy has ECCM6.
The main problem I see is that they don't need to be fast nor heavy hitting, they will always reach their target, so you can spend your entire resources on good sensors and Anti Missile tech.
I'll post it up in the bug board then.
The other nuance in other peoples' responses that you might not have picked up on is that Aurora is not just a game of designing nifty ultra-high-tech weapons (or ships, or fighters or ....), it's about building the industrial base, researching the technology, and managing the logistics chain. Especially for missiles. My reaction to your "how would you fight this" post was "I'd let you waste all your money building missiles that are 2-3 times as big and expensive as my missiles". And 3MSP is a huge hit on a missile, since it comes out of the payload, not the missile. By this I mean that if you don't throw armor, or sensors or ECM, or ... on them, then missiles scale exactly - you can make a missile twice as big, with twice the warhead, and twice the engines, twice the fuel, and twice the agility, and it will have exactly the same speed and hit probability as the original missile, but will do twice the damage. So the size/expense of a missile will be proportional to the "payload" size (in this case the warhead). So those 3MSP are coming out of the payload mass. In your example, how many HS did you devote to warhead? If it was 4, then you could build almost twice as many missiles without ECM for the same infrastructure cost, and their launchers would shoot twice as fast. This is why a lot of us had a "ho-hum" reaction - you've gone way up there on the tech tree (much higher than you're ever likely to grow from a standard TN start), and even if what you've found isn't a bug, there are lots of counter-strategies that can be applied (like building a bunch of beam-armed ships that are just big balls of armor and letting you shoot yourself dry against them because you don't have the magazine space to support the missiles or the ordnance factories to build them).
John
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 02, 2010, 01:54:39 AM
Steve