Aurora 4x
VB6 Aurora => Aurora Suggestions => Topic started by: deoved on August 21, 2011, 08:36:01 AM
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Yes, Gundams! Basicaly "fighters" launched from carrier, but with ability to swarm enemy ships, like Battletech boargame Mobile Armor's can. Also they must have possibility to support ground troops. All aviation must have this abillity.
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so perhaps fighters that have charateristics of air units as well is what youre saying ? and perhaps ground bombardment technology
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I would love it if fighters were able to act in a ground support role in general.
However, this probably goes under the category of a general ground combat redesign to include things like air forces and possibly wet navies. Thus fighters and maybe even corvettes could be designed to be able to operate in the atmosphere too, to overwhelm planet based atmospheric fighters.
A gundam or other high mobility / lower speed 'fighter' could be possible if we could customise fighters by trading speed for agility, etc. Not sure its within Steve's vision for the game though.
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good point, a ground troop with some aerial ( lower defense value) that could be dropped in limited numbers by obrital transport ships has some merit in general but depends on the games creator. Who seems to be a bit busy in real life not seen online since august 11th 2011
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good point, a ground troop with some aerial ( lower defense value) that could be dropped in limited numbers by obrital transport ships has some merit in general but depends on the games creator. Who seems to be a bit busy in real life not seen online since august 2011
Steve is probably dedicating time eslewhere right now as he just got the lastest patch out.
And it IS August 2011 right now, unless I read my calendar completely wrong.
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back to topic, would these gundams be manned or unmanned technology or could they be manned initally and then made automated with advances in the techonology tree
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I don't expect this to go anywhere. Not knocking the initiative to post the suggestion, but Steve, and some of the core veteran players, has a strong bias against allowing anyform of smallcraft to be able to effectively engage ships at short range without significant overwhelming numbers. This bias is a carryover from Starfire 3rdR where the bulk of the core players of that system believe that fighters, as defined within to written rules of the system, are disproportionately strong when compared to warships.
Obviously, I tend to disagree with this bias. :o
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The main point was about "swarming" ie boarding ships with Mobile Armor Squads, who otherwise would be simple "weak" fighter. But ground supporting role would be also good.
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I find the above statement quite amusing, since the most effective unit are missile laden fighters, so you can launch multiple missiles to overwhelm point defense systems from a single salvo at speed and return.
I have not played starfire, so not familiar with rules, but my bias always have an edge of reality chucked in, and reality now may not always mean the future, but if we look at naval combat now the aircraft carrier is the strike arm and fighters do overwhelm ships that are of a great size. The difference being is always range, length of time available. Also the cost of a fleet of fighters is almost as prohibitive to a cost of a number of warships.
I know bias in general life only stifle growth, not enhances it.
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I find the above statement quite amusing, since the most effective unit are missile laden fighters, so you can launch multiple missiles to overwhelm point defense systems from a single salvo at speed and return.<snip>
Point of clarification, the suggestion in the first post is to add a capability (smallcraft restricted?) of "swarming" which I take to refer to mecha hand-to-hand combat. There is a heavy bias in the tech against fighters/smallcraft being effective a point blank ranges. A review of the engine tech and beam weapons hs requirements and Electronics Warfare bares this out. Missiles can be used as a point blank weapon but their niche is really as standoff weapon.
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The thing is, from what I hear (never played starfire) that fighters there were incredibly efficient in terms firepower/space used. This, obviously begs the questions: If those fighter weapons are so bloody efficient, why do I not put a gazillion of them on my destroyer and blast everything in sight to kingdom come?
In Aurora, things are a bit different. Yes, Missile-Fighters are efficient, but they use the same stuff as everything else. You can easily put a gazillion box-launchers on your cruiser and use them just like a fighter swarm.
At equal tech, it is quite easy to counter a fighter based fleet. Huge res-3 sensor and a gazillion of size 3 to 6 box-launchers (you want to outrange the fighters significantly) with long-range res-3 firecons and ideally good ECM and all the hostile fighters die before they even launch.
Also, as much as I was (and still am) a battletech fan, Aurora has its feet (IMO) rather frirmly in a "realistic" setting. Mecha? No, simply no!
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The thing is, from what I hear (never played starfire) that fighters there were incredibly efficient in terms firepower/space used. This, obviously begs the questions: If those fighter weapons are so bloody efficient, why do I not put a gazillion of them on my destroyer and blast everything in sight to kingdom come?
In Aurora, things are a bit different. Yes, Missile-Fighters are efficient, but they use the same stuff as everything else. You can easily put a gazillion box-launchers on your cruiser and use them just like a fighter swarm.
At equal tech, it is quite easy to counter a fighter based fleet. Huge res-3 sensor and a gazillion of size 3 to 6 box-launchers (you want to outrange the fighters significantly) with long-range res-3 firecons and ideally good ECM and all the hostile fighters die before they even launch.
Also, as much as I was (and still am) a battletech fan, Aurora has its feet (IMO) rather frirmly in a "realistic" setting. Mecha? No, simply no!
As i am also a battletech fan, i agree that mecha have little realism, but i mean something like battletech's "Elementals" ie 3-4 meters exoskeleton infantry(space infantry), that swarm ship and blast it armor in close quarters.
Aurora is a great game, but there is almost no realism in simple transfer of naval combat to space.
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As i am also a battletech fan, i agree that mecha have little realism, but i mean something like battletech's "Elementals" ie 3-4 meters exoskeleton infantry(space infantry), that swarm ship and blast it armor in close quarters.
Aurora is a great game, but there is almost no realism in simple transfer of naval combat to space.
This functionality is already in the game, most of it anyway, by Marines from from drop pod equipted ships.
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,1680.0.html (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,1680.0.html)
Granted they are not independent smallcraft that function as suits. But the smallest possible combonation is a fighter engine equipted ship with small drop pod and a Marine Company. Once the Marines, or other unit type, successfully transfer via drop pod they will blast their way into the target ship.
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I tend to view Heavy Assault Battalions as mecha units, depending on the nation using them.
I'm also in the camp of 'I wish fighters were usable in close quarters', but I'll work with the system as it is. It would be nice if fighters with beam weapons were at all plausible under the Aurora system. As it is, they're simply too large and too short-ranged compared to their missile-armed cousins.
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I tend to view Heavy Assault Battalions as mecha units, depending on the nation using them.
They are "armor" units... I tend to see them like this:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/picture.php?albumid=1149&pictureid=10096
And because I am a nerd, I give all the batallions space marine-y names (space wolves, blood ravens, etcetera). Regular units get more fun names: like the raging badonkadonks
I can't think of any way to "fix" beam fighters without wiping out missile combat as it presently exists. One thing I've thought of is designing beam weapons the same way that we develop missile weapons, and overhaul the beam fire control concept entirely. However, I'm not a game designer, and anything I have come up with has been easy to cheese.
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Beam fighters would be more effective, but they are easily knocked out by missiles at range, best way for this not to be the case if they have some sort of counter measures fighter only.
But as it stands not they can get taken out by aams too easily, if you put in fighter based counter measures then you will see beam fighter being at least semi effective, they still need to mass and swarm a combat vessel especially if it has point defense lasers.
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Its hard to think of fighter based countermeasures that ships can't use more effectively.
Really, the only thing fighters have going for them is size.
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Yeah, an expensive, recoverable 1st stage to a missile; thats how i've used them.
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/snip
Also, as much as I was (and still am) a battletech fan, Aurora has its feet (IMO) rather frirmly in a "realistic" setting. Mecha? No, simply no!
Mecha in Aurora..damn no..:)
+1
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Mecha in Aurora..damn no..:)
+1
Super Heavy Armour instead ... OGREs or BOLOS !
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could be worth exploring
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Its hard to think of fighter based countermeasures that ships can't use more effectively.
Really, the only thing fighters have going for them is size.
I can take for instance thermal, a thermal flare you could do at a fighter level there is no way to create a thermal flare for a 8000 ton vessel.
Same with decoys (sqwarkers), a fighter which is a small craft you can do, to get the same presicion on a 5-10K vessel would be impossible.
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Srry guys,make no mistake..: IVE been lover "Gundam"..in 1975 and next years:)) very addictive toons.
But in Aurora..my (my 2 cents) HOPE are primarily to Steve take seriously , bug treath and countermeasure.
When Bugs are fixed..going on in ARMY development and MAPPING..
Am fear..Gundam,can be a "more later" achievment in research plan..not for now.
(hope my funny english are understandable,..)
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I can take for instance thermal, a thermal flare you could do at a fighter level there is no way to create a thermal flare for a 8000 ton vessel.
Same with decoys (sqwarkers), a fighter which is a small craft you can do, to get the same presicion on a 5-10K vessel would be impossible.
I might misunderstand you here. If so, disregard.
If you have a fighter of mass X, that throws out Y reaction mass per second at an exhaust speed of Z, your decoy has to match all those three, or it will be immediately recogniced as a decoy.
Say, you have 10 fighters, accompanied by 20 decoys --> the decoys are supposed to stay with the real fighters, to fool the enemy into thinking the strike is larger and/or making the enemy shoot at decoys instead of the real fighters.
Case A:
Your decoys are smaller (and cheaper) than your fighters). In order to stay with your real fighters, either Y or Z has to be smaller --> decoys immediately recognized
Case B:
Your decoys are the same size as your fighters (and probably cost almost as much). Why bother with decoys and not use 30 real fighters?
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The problem with this sort of an analysis is that the thermal flare as you put it is not consistent. It can be modified by tech. If the tech that is normally used to minimize the thermal emmissions is instead used to enhance the emmissions then you can have a small object moving at a decent speed that has a thermal signature of something much larger. There is no exhaust speed, nor reaction mass being expelled to help figure out the energy involved. The mass is a measure of volume in this case also, not actual weight so a decoy that can be collapsed for storage could then be unfolded/turn on its gravity enhancer to make it appear larger than it really is. Do the same thing to its thermal signature and you have a viable decoy that doesn't need to cost anywhere near as much as the actual fighter would cost. I have even done something like this on larger ships where I made a warship with a lot of low cost internals (old style cargo holds) and a military engine that was not damped down. As my actual warships had a early cloak that made them look 10% of their actual size the combination made a ship that was actually the size of a destroyer look more like a big battleship. Given two different targets they concentrated on the one with the most battleship targets which was actually the decoy fleet and allowed my real warships to get into range of the planet I was going after. This was against a computer controlled npr so I had nothing to do with the actual choice of which to go after.
Brian
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My point was the same in real life as it is now. It is far easier to trick a missile with countermeasure on a small object like a plane compared to a ship at sea. Otherwise you would see ships at sea with a mass of countermeasures.
Yes countermeasures need to be cheaper otherwise why would you produce one. Let look at counter measure v thermal missiles.
A thermal missile target itself on the heat signature, to replicate a heat signature of a fighter you use basic physics tricker, current day we use magnesium burning and giving a signature comparative to a fighter, that how it confused the missile targeting.
In future I am sure the missile AI is smarter but I think i am sure the counter measure would be just as smart and just as cheap.
Active Sensors target missiles, re based on a sound or light targeting system or perhaps a mixture of the both I am sure a countermeasure would trick the the missile. Just like Chaffs countermeasure for radar guided missiles.
I don't have the exact physics answers but the logic is the same to how current modern combat works. Having said that some ships are deployed with chaffs and flares but logical you can not have the same impact compared to smaller vessels.
Considering everything else in aurora is like a modern combat fleet battle I cannot see why people are against the fundamental thing that make carrier based attacks possible. Else fighter would be knocked out the sky just like they are in aurora without a hope.
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Wow!! This as strayed a long way from Gundam/mecha/veriform smallcraft to countermeasures.
From the generic viewpoint countermeasures already exist in the game, both passive and active. The most notable passive is the thermal reduction techline for engines. Current Electronic Warfare (ECM/ECCM) by definition is also countermeasures.
Flares and Chaff would fall into the rhelm of active countermeasures and have been discussed from time to time. The intent is either to provide a volume of alternate targets that overwelm the attackers ability to maintain an destingquishing signature of the target or to create temporary terrain mask (for lack of a better term) that completely block LOS between attacker and target. Both are achievable goals and have been done for both aircraft and warships.
Decoys can also be done. With the knowledge of the technology being used to detect a given target(fighter/warship/etc) it is quite possible to create an active system that will mimic the targets signature for attacking systems thus creating the need for the attacker to make a discission as to which one is the valid target.
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Considering everything else in aurora is like a modern combat fleet battle I cannot see why people are against the fundamental thing that make carrier based attacks possible. Else fighter would be knocked out the sky just like they are in aurora without a hope.
The amazing thing is that even though Aurora looks like modern naval warfare, the way it got there was through Steve ruthlessly following where the "physics" led. For example, missiles used to be MUCH shorter range, and were handled using a completely different mechanism from ships. Then Steve got a bug in his ear to look at fuel consumption vs. power/weight curves, and the ultra-long-range missiles (just like modern naval warfare's missiles vs. guns) popped out.
The fundamental physics difference between fighters and ships in modern naval warfare is that fighters operate in a different medium than ships, giving them a huge performance advantage. The other one is that the Earth is not flat :) (so fighters can sneak up on ships without being detected/targetted by ship-borne sensors). Neither of those is the case in space, so fighters in Aurora operate at a disadvantage vs. fighters in Harpoon.
One other thing to consider: what would happen if a group of fighters attempted to gravity-bomb an Aegis-defended TG (without using horizon-based lobe-picking approach techniques)? There's a decent chance they'd all be knocked out of the sky without a hope.
John
PS - I love the idea of beam-fighters and want to have them - I just don't know how to make them work in Aurora.
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But small and numerous Space Marines with jet-packs can swarm this carrier ;D
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But small and numerous Space Marines with jet-packs can swarm this carrier ;D
Yep, smallcraft with CombatDropModules can deliver troops for board actions...but they have to be able to get there first.
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One could always say that it takes a drive field to penetrate a drive field. Thus the need for drop pods.
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One could always say that it takes a drive field to penetrate a drive field. Thus the need for drop pods.
How about personal drive fields for jet-packs of Space Marines? Self-delivering Space Marines!
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it all goes back to speed. think the train job episode of Firefly-- how did they get to the train? they had a spaceship that could fly much faster than the train, hopped on board, and loaded up the booty. imagine if the train had been flying, and jerked up-- it would have crashed the smaller ship and blown up the crew. Jetpacks would be great-- but the speeds are enormous; 1000 kms is really effing fast; voyager 1 (essentially the fastest man made object) goes what, 17 kms? If you and your house were moving at 1000 kms, and you slowed down to 999 for just a tenth of a second, the back wall would smack into you, you'd blast through, and would be splattered over several city blocks.
I'd posit that in only damaging the marines in a failed drop, steve is being nice-- a failed drop should be considered a ramming attack on the dropship with the potential of catastrophic damage.
on the other hand, space marines with jetpacks are awesome (Orz!)
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In that case I'd totally build massive dropships with a single drop pod to fail the enemy ship out of existence.^^