Aurora 4x
VB6 Aurora => Aurora Chat => Topic started by: Vandermeer on June 17, 2014, 04:32:44 PM
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I have noticed of course for long time already that there is a great consent about how fleets are defined in peoples Aurora games. Most seem to adapt definitions for sizes like 1000 tons for a gunboat, around 7k for a destroyer, 15k as cruiser, and then ranges of 20-60k for different sized carriers. Of course it slightly varies from person to person, but given that the true range of mass definition is completely open and object to individual judgement, I find it rather unbelievable that all this unison has been found by accident. So how or from where did those definitions come from? My guess is that there is some famous tutorial somewhere out there that only foolish me missed. Or maybe it is just that most people learn through asking questions on some forum (not necessarily this one), and through that there is more kind of tradition based tutelage?
I know that those standards make sense, like a 7k destroyer is just big enough to strap on one of the biggest size(/most efficient) engines, so it is the smallest most effective ship that can be built. From that you might size up a bit, because certain modules, like bigger caliber turrets, may need a bit more than a destroyer can offer. So that is why 15k cruisers make sense too. Also keeping sizes low means smaller shipyards (slower build-up of force though) and fewer maintenance facilities needed. Both of those last reasons however kind of become obsolete in advanced game stages when you have enough people and resources to afford ten- and even hundred-folds of that easily.
Anyway, so I can explain those established doctrines with logic, but I still find it rather baffling that anyone so far, and I literally mean anyone besides me of which I read design plans, has indeed found to this structure. You would normally bet that at least some people would just make their own plans, or just not see the advantage on day one or something, but nope. Perfect choir. Where does this come from? (am I just immune to the mind manipulating nano bots that Steve manufactures in his spare time?)
I myself decided against this sense making organization only because on one hand I want to minimize micromanagement ("minimize micromanagement"...sounds like tautology), and also often try to replicate sci-fi ships, which are all bigger than Auroras model. Sometimes by a lot. (Aurora is kind of a dwarf template in the sci-fi universes) But how come no one does this, or something else different?
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Go dig up some of Waresky's ship plans. There was also an exercise is whatifism I'd done building max sized jump capable ships. Carried something like a dozen 7500 ton parasites, 125 battalions (the troop carrier specialization carried more), etc.
Some of the "limits" are imposed by the game. Fighters are 500 tons or smaller, gunboats/facs are 500-1000 tons. Outside of that, ship sizes are player preference really. My survey craft run around 3500-4500 tons. Destroyers are 6000-7500 tons. Cruisers are 2x a destroyer. Battlecruisers 3x, and battleships 4x.
But there is nothing stopping you from calling a 1000 ton ship a dreadnaught either.
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Check out this (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,6721.0.html) thread. Includes 60,000 ton destroyers, 300,000 ton cruisers, and 500,000 ton battleships, as well as 10,000 ton gunboats and 1,000 ton fighters. Ship sizes vastly increase as you play through the game.
Addendum: This (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,6738.0.html) is an example of a ridiculously large mobile battle station. Near the bottom of the page is another, bigger version.
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http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,1135.30.html
This 8 year old thread is the one I had with the "max" jump hulls. 125,000 tons
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Check out this (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,6721.0.html) thread. Includes 60,000 ton destroyers, 300,000 ton cruisers, and 500,000 ton battleships, as well as 10,000 ton gunboats and 1,000 ton fighters. Ship sizes vastly increase as you play through the game.
Addendum: This (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,6738.0.html) is an example of a ridiculously large mobile battle station. Near the bottom of the page is another, bigger version.
(http://www.greensmilies.com/smile/smiley_emoticons_lol.gif) Haha, yeah, exactly. There is no one else, thanks for emphasizing. Is that the lonely wind of the prairie of solitude I hear?
Go dig up some of Waresky's ship plans. There was also an exercise is whatifism I'd done building max sized jump capable ships. Carried something like a dozen 7500 ton parasites, 125 battalions (the troop carrier specialization carried more), etc.
The 8 year old link is interesting, but those were just theoretical studies right? You wouldn't really play a game with unconventional sizes I mean. Also, I looked Waresky's plans up, but from what I found he is pretty much conventional too. Strange was a cruiser design of only 8kt here, in other reports then typical 14 or 20k, and lastly one single jump cruiser of 44k. Not really outside the box en masse too. :P
What I find strange about the classical Aurora ship size doctrines is that their sizes are so narrow together that lets say destroyers and supposed to be battleships don't even differ so much. I mean, they may weight 4 times as much, but if you calculate that down to dimensional difference, it still is only like 60% larger in every direction.(you have to use sqrt_3{x} to get the dimensional size difference) Through this, if you put them side by side, you probably wouldn't even guess that one is a mere destroyer "worker" and the other one a mighty capital ship, the centre of fleet probably, because they just don't look so different in size. And this is very contrary to what you see in most sci-fi franchises where capital ships are usually hulking, and every class has a clear size jump between one and the next.
I put together some pictures to emphasize.
This is how the sizes in Aurora really look like (the sizes are accurate - I put them all to the same size first, and then just scaled in % by what the calculator threw at me):
(http://abload.de/img/auroradoctrinetxpq9.jpg)
What I found most impressive is that not even a supposed to be miniscule gunship is really all that tiny in comparison. Heck, even a fighter would be rather large still. No wonder they are so deadly.
In comparison two other scales I found (one even from Stargate [partly fanfiction it seems]):
(http://abload.de/img/multi1xa4em9.jpg)
(http://abload.de/img/strongholdiushipsv6irn.jpg)
In the Stargate one, take the Prometheus (second from right), which is already some sort of heavy frigate with dozens of fighters, multi-role, yet quite smaller than a Ha'tak. The actual carrier on the left is about 4 times as large in dimensions, which makes it about 60-70 times as heavy.
In the later picture, the second from the right is probably some destroyer, which has about the same factor to the last craft, and maybe x3=~30 the weight to the second to last. The difference between the fifth and the seventh from right is already about what makes the difference between destroyer and battlecruiser in Aurora classic doctrine. ..Doesn't really feel like it.
In Star Wars it is known that an already huge Star Destroyer would barely make an engine of the superdestroyer of the movies.
Or here, where an accurate scale has been given:
(http://abload.de/img/shipscale3vdgm.png)
Alone the mass difference between a cruiser and a battlecruiser is about factor 5, and 16 to a battleship. Given, maybe they got a bit overboard since the frigates and destroyers really vanish into nonexistence here, but fact is that in sci-fi there are usually hugely differently sized and through that very distinct classes, while in Aurora they kind of blend schmutzy and clunk together.
Why is that so? Probably because Aurora tries to be more realistic, in which case I must agree that the smaller scaling is probably more close to what would actually happen. Maybe a bit larger gaps, and then also non-classed singular huge ones for special purpose probably, but all in all something like that.
But this would just mean that most people here are trying to play really realistic, while it appears no one follows the trail of classical fiction and fantasy, which would lead to the epics lands of healthy gigantism.^^
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Right, I didn't actually play a game with them. The mineral and time requirements were just off the scale.
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(http://www.greensmilies.com/smile/smiley_emoticons_lol.gif) Haha, yeah, exactly. There is no one else, thanks for emphasizing. Is that the lonely wind of the prairie of solitude I hear?
...usually I pay more attention to stuff like that.
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I draw pretty detailed schematics of all my ships so this is something I think about a lot.
I'm actually not a very large reader of military science fiction so it's sorta odd that I wandered into this game. I'm also not very literate about water navies after 1700 either so I tend to instead use classes that govern the role of the ship rather than simply its tonnage. As a consequence my cruisers and destroyers usually have similar sizes but different roles (cruisers and battlecruisers can run independent of a larger fleet, destoryers invest less in independence and more in ship hunting and ship killing systems). So I usually use the following terms simply for the kind of roles they evoke in the only sort of navies I know about: really old ones:
- Frigates: Ships that work together in large lines, usually small and short ranged so better suited for jump point or planetary defense. For me "Gunship" is evocative of a helicopter so my "gunships" are actually like 500 tons, not 1,000. Most of my frigates are between 1,000 and 5,000 tons
- Destroyer: Ships designed to pick off and destroy smaller evasive ships on behalf of larger ships, usually they have short ranged torpedoes, long ranged guns, and very long ranged sensors. Currently I have 15,000 ton destroyers
- Cruiser: Ships that can independently operate, usually for harassing missions, ad hoc defense, rescue, or exploration or scouting. Usually they have light weapons but sometimes very long ranged missles. In my current game I have 15,000 ton very fast "Light crusiers" with multipurpose laser turrets and 4 torpedo tubes, so they're extremely versatiles, I also have slower 25,000 ton "Missile cruisers" which lob very long ranged weapons, usually at lone targets in a defensive role.
- "Battlecruiser": my usual jargon for extremely powerful and fast beam warships with tons of arms and tons of armor. The backbone of my fleet are 25,000 ton battlecruisers that run both beam weapons and torpedoes.
- Carrier: Ship that carries fighers. My carriers are invariably the largest ships in my fleet, usually at around 25,000 to 30,000 tons.
This may be as good a time as any to begin a petition to add the "Sloop" class to Aurora. The name is cool and thematic and I want sloops captained by daring space captains that zip around the universe kicking ass.
Practically speaking I don't think I've ever felt the need for a ship of more than 50,000 tons. The logical thing to do seems to be to instead build more, smaller ships.
There's never been a time where I've said: "Rats! If only these three ships had twice as many guns!"
There's been about 50 times I've said" Rats! If only I could protect both these systems at the same time!"
So there's really no need for variance between a 10,000 ton ship and a 100,000 ton ship, at least, for any campaign I've played.
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Vandermeer most players appear to stick with a base population of 500m with setting up their player race. With this size population there is a economic limit to ships sizes that can be realistically supported.
They also normally do not alter the starting shipyards. Since the starting military yard is normally no larger than 10k people tend to try to fit familiar class designations within this scale. Yes the yards can scale up, but with such a small starting point that takes a very long time.
The other limiting factor is resources. Again because of small starting populations the ability to extract sufficient resources to build and maintain large scale ships just isn't practical. Yes planets with very high quantities of critical minerals are found, but usually with very low accessibility. The low accessibility requires high numbers of mines to extract the needed quantities. Then you run into the need to either transport said minerals to your manufacturing centers or move the manufacturing centers to the minerals. Moving the MC's requires habitable worlds for the support colonies.
If played with most of the baseline populations statistics untouched it quickly becomes a vicious circle.
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This may be as good a time as any to begin a petition to add the "Sloop" class to Aurora. The name is cool and thematic and I want sloops captained by daring space captains that zip around the universe kicking ass.
You can add your own custom class and class acronym by pressing "new hull" in the class design window.
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Right, I didn't actually play a game with them. The mineral and time requirements were just off the scale.
That is not really true. In my current game for example I fielded this (spoiler alert):
Ha'tak class Mothership 2,200,000 tons 44395 Crew 1442549.5 BP TCS 44000 TH 6600 EM 900000
15000 km/s Armour 24-1506 Shields 30000-300 Sensors 3750/3750/5/10 Damage Control Rating 4029 PPV 3257.72
Maint Life 4.64 Years MSP 1651270 AFR 9609% IFR 133.5% 1YR 124979 5YR 1874691 Max Repair 10500 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 36 months Flight Crew Berths 9013
Hangar Deck Capacity 232000 tons Cryo Drop Capacity: 116 Battalions Magazine 14228 Cargo 75000 Cargo Handling Multiplier 120
Jump Gate Construction Ship: 20 days
Recreational Facilities
Salvager: 2 module(s) capable of salvaging 5000 tons per day
2500 EP Stealth Photonic Drive (264) Power 2500 Fuel Use 0.88% Signature 25 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 150,000,000 Litres Range 1394.6 billion km (1076 days at full power)
Ancients Shields (2000) Total Fuel Cost 30,000 Litres per hour (720,000 per day)
Gold Pyramidion cal.377-80r-45.24m (1) Range 1,400,000km TS: 25000 km/s Power 377-25 RM 12 ROF 75 377 377 377 377 377 377 377 377 377 377
Tac Defense Network cal.4x6-5r-720k (16x4) Range 720,000km TS: 100000 km/s Power 24-25 RM 12 ROF 5 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
Phalanx Turret cal.4x24-5r-2.88m (16x4) Range 1,400,000km TS: 50000 km/s Power 96-100 RM 12 ROF 5 24 24 24 24 24 24 24 24 24 24
Staff Cannon cal.50-25r-1200k (60) Range 1,200,000km TS: 25000 km/s Power 125-25 ROF 25 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50
Staff Cannon cal.9-5r-1200k (60) Range 1,200,000km TS: 25000 km/s Power 22-25 ROF 5 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9
Ion Cannon cal.24-5r-1.44m (1) Range 1,400,000km TS: 25000 km/s Power 24-25 RM 144 ROF 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Gravity Shield (30x16) Range 1000 km TS: 100000 km/s ROF 5 Base 50% To Hit
Beam Tactical rated 700k-100kps (3) Max Range: 1,400,000 km TS: 100000 km/s 99 99 98 97 96 96 95 94 94 93
Vacuum Energy Power Plant PB-1 (1) Total Power Output 400 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Vacuum Energy Power Plant PB-1.5 (8) Total Power Output 4800 Armour 0 Exp 35%
Size 32 Ancients Torpedo Launcher (8) Missile Size 32 Rate of Fire 80
Naquadah Bomb Sluice (1) Missile Size 100 Rate of Fire 250
Size 12 Seeker Hatch (1) Missile Size 12 Rate of Fire 30
Torpedo Tactical rated 5b-res17 (1) Range 5,009.6m km Resolution 17
Seeker Tactical rated 65.6m-res8 (1) Range 63.6m km Resolution 8
Bomb Guidance CPU rated 2.25m-res1 (1) Range 2.3m km Resolution 1
Naquadah Bomb (31) Speed: 30,000 km/s End: 11.3m Range: 20.4m km WH: 567 Size: 100 TH: 100/60/30
Ancients Seeker Drone (243) Speed: 250,000 km/s End: 4.2m Range: 63m km WH: 36 Size: 12 TH: 1416/850/425
Plasma Charge (300) Speed: 250,000 km/s End: 0.1m Range: 1.7m km WH: 171 Size: 12 TH: 1666/1000/500
Ancients Assault Torpedo (144) Speed: 281,200 km/s End: 60.5m Range: 1020.5m km WH: 225 Size: 32 TH: 1499/899/449
Ancients Missile Scanner rated 6.75b-res1 (1) GPS 9000 Range 6,750.0m km MCR 735.1m km Resolution 1
Ancients Sensor Suite rated 30.187b-res20 (1) GPS 180000 Range 30,186.9m km Resolution 20
Ancients Redundant Sensor Orbs rated 3b-res2 (1) GPS 5760 Range 3,054.7m km Resolution 2
Thermal Sensor TH50-3750 (1) Sensitivity 3750 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 3750m km
EM Detection Sensor EM50-3750 (1) Sensitivity 3750 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 3750m km
Phased Gravitational Sensors (1) 5 Survey Points Per Hour
Phased Geological Sensors (2) 10 Survey Points Per Hour
Compact ECCM-10 (6) ECM 100
Cost point:
(http://abload.de/img/unbenanntnokcr.jpg)
At the time where I built this (approx. 150 years in) that barely made 3% of my pool for Gallicite, and completely irrelevant percentages of everything else. It also took barely a year to manufacture. Since the building time curve flattens the larger a design is, building larger ships actually results in faster build-up of firepower. Like 2 small ships would take longer to build than one x2 sized one. A minor advantage.
The reason I only built this so late is just tech level btw. and not resource shortage. I could have fielded one much earlier without much pain (probably 50 years in), but there was just no need for my mainly mining based passive empire at this age. So expensive about this is just the Gallicite (more due to tech level here again - ..every later ship has this problem) and then also the initial shipyard build-up, which can cost millions of duranium and neutronium. However, once you have one with your largest ship assigned, you can usually use it to built every other ship in your repository as well, so that is when those costs stop.(..and who cares about a one time 2m investment in duranium and neutronium at times where your storage begins to count in multi-millions anyway)
So I could have had a fleet of 20-30 of those, but even that would have been to many ships for me to bother managing by hand.(in single task forces that is..)
Vandermeer most players appear to stick with a base population of 500m with setting up their player race. With this size population there is a economic limit to ships sizes that can be realistically supported.
They also normally do not alter the starting shipyards. Since the starting military yard is normally no larger than 10k people tend to try to fit familiar class designations within this scale. Yes the yards can scale up, but with such a small starting point that takes a very long time.
The other limiting factor is resources. Again because of small starting populations the ability to extract sufficient resources to build and maintain large scale ships just isn't practical. Yes planets with very high quantities of critical minerals are found, but usually with very low accessibility. The low accessibility requires high numbers of mines to extract the needed quantities. Then you run into the need to either transport said minerals to your manufacturing centers or move the manufacturing centers to the minerals. Moving the MC's requires habitable worlds for the support colonies.
If played with most of the baseline populations statistics untouched it quickly becomes a vicious circle.
Aha, you think because I started at 10 billion people in the Warhammer game, that is how I usually do it. No no, just at the time I had just lost my old game to intense slow down, but I wanted to get up quickly to the same grade of development to kind of simulate "continuing" the old game. In my current game I started just like everyone else with 500m people (the world of ancient egypt), conventional even, no tech points, and nothing extra with shipyards too (never did manipulate anything here in any game).
And yes, this is the game where I built the 74m Gallicite fortress mothership. Not saying it was easy to get this, but in 250 years, you just have this kind of resource.(even without really expanding everywhere you could - as I said there, I basically mostly bunkered down and opened mining colonies only on the most viable spots, because I hate having too much administration burden)
If you know how to mine efficiently (0.1 acc. planets are strangely and counter-intuitively the way to go here), there is really nothing stopping you resource or shipyard, or population size wise. You can get into wealth problems if not cautious, but of course that issue can be foreseen countered too.
On other note, my first freighter in this game was actually a huge 50 cargo bay one too. Nothing did stop me from doing this in this very conventional game. My home planet wasn't even that rich, with I think barely more than a million duranium at start, and Sol generally not that heavy. Did not stop gigantism for me, uh no.
...Maybe I should make a documentation thread of an open game to show this of and prove it.
@Theodidactus:
True, there is no real practical reason to build this large, as you can achieve most with larger numbers of smaller craft. Well, there is a difference for civil designs. My 50 cargo hold freighters for example (weighting 2.2-2.4m tons) can usually strap on a gate builder, recreational facilities and around 4 salvagers without really expanding their total tonnage unnecessarily. This has the advantage of indefinite crew deployment, and nice multi role abilities, so I don't need to build some other specialized ships to fulfill this. Came up in my second game, when the 'loss of morale' messages of my freighter trails started to unnerve me.
For military ships however, this is not really needed, unless you want a combination mothership craft like the one above that has those abilities too.(since recreation and gate building is around 100kt each, you would need designs in the millions so this doesn't dominate the design and renders it ultimately uneffective)
But that is not the point. I knew already that it would strictly be more efficient to have military fleets of smallest possible parts. Yet, for once, "most efficient" doesn't mean it is "necessary" to do things so perfect (like I fare pretty fine in the games where I abandoned this), and then at times of extreme resource abundance it also becomes quite bothersome to manage so many little wheels.(it would have been hundreds just to fill the space of one of the Ha'tak above, and I could have had quite a lot of those too...)
Anyway, that is actually not my criticism, nor do I in any way really criticize the procedure. I just find it baffling that no one (out of many) let loose of his creativity and just made what he wanted no matter what would be wise. Like, I saw Aurora posts on three other forums before coming here with either people discussing how things are done, or presenting their games with story and all. Nowhere did one ever differ from the doctrine, like they have all been brainwashed. The reasons to follow these plans are good, but in no way compelling, so by the laws of statistics, this has to be declared a phenomenon.
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That is not really true. In my current game for example I fielded this (spoiler alert):
Don't forget those ships were designed in 4.77 I think.
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Yes you can have a relatively uneventful game by bunkering.
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I designate classes based on function instead of size. Of course, function and size often correlate. When I am home from business travel on Thu I will post my system in this thread.
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To take things to the other end of the spectrum, in The Coldest War, ships are actually quite small even by Aurora standards. The Federation rolled out a bunch of meson-armed "corvettes" of 1450 tons. The UN has a number of ship classes, with "destroyer escorts" being sub-2000 tons, "destroyers" being between 2000-5000 tons, a run of 5100 ton "cruisers," and some 7150 ton "monitors."
The reason for this is that both factions started conventionally, but the arms race that ensued immediately prioritized getting ANY armed ships out ASAP, no matter the size. Combine this with a relatively slow pace of play (we're only about 12 years in, with the state-of-the-art being ion engines), and you wind up with pretty small, limited-functionality ships compared to the impressive multi-role megavessels posted above.
So not everyone is cleaving hard to the schema in the OP. I'd wager that not even most people are. It could just be most people who actually show up here to talk about it.
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Don't forget those ships were designed in 4.77 I think.
Ah, then I am thankful that the numbers evolved to also fit my own preference.^^
Yes you can have a relatively uneventful game by bunkering.
Aah, also this isn't the cause. In my first two games I did venture out as early as I could and developed the technology on the flight just like everyone else. My first big explorers didn't even have hangars since I did not get to researching them yet, and still they clocked in at 80kt (first military design of my life), and then 120kt and 180kt (+later 700kt after 70 years) for my second game. Only problem I had there was to fuel those, but just because I didn't yet recognize that gas giants are by far the supreme fuel source. Other than that the second game went pretty well (except for the slow down of course), so doing things this way works just fine.
This bunkering I did not do to get resource for giant craft. That is present anyway you play it after a while. I only did it to keep my game small so that increments would calculate fast and I could get to lategame technology swiftly to realize this dream of a huge working fortress. You may call it uneventful, but considering I did this all in about 3 days which normally would take months by normal play to reach, I say the events are just about to start.
Anyway, even without such set project, there is nothing standing in the way of larger build doctrines. At least as soon as you developed your first viable extrasolar mining colony that is. ..Inside of sol, it is of course harsh/impossible unless you have Lady Fortuna running the random generator.
I designate classes based on function instead of size. Of course, function and size often correlate. When I am home from business travel on Thu I will post my system in this thread.
Ok, you could probably claim the title of the first (that I saw) who did something different then. The discussion was kind of focused on larger ships so far, mostly because that is the most obvious difference to classical sci-fi, but actually everything that is divergent of the common doctrine would be something new.
So not everyone is cleaving hard to the schema in the OP. I'd wager that not even most people are. It could just be most people who actually show up here to talk about it.
Maybe, but that is quite the statistical anomaly too then. Like, no records at all? Cross-forum?
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Maybe, but that is quite the statistical anomaly too then. Like, no records at all? Cross-forum?
As far as I know, this is the only place where detailed and consistent posts are made for Aurora. I know Bay12 and a couple of other places had some AARs posted.
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Ok, you could probably claim the title of the first (that I saw) who did something different then. The discussion was kind of focused on larger ships so far, mostly because that is the most obvious difference to classical sci-fi, but actually everything that is divergent of the common doctrine would be something new.
I wanted my setting to feel more like 1700s-1800s colonial politics than "world war II in space" which is what most people do. I read a lot of Horatio Hornblower and The baroque cycle. My fleets (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,6735.0.html) are fast and short ranged and very slow firing and emphasize single devastating broadsides.
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Relative newbie. . . but I'm playing through the first game where I have even the slightest semblance of a military and my first Cruiser was 6000 tons. The jump-capable follow up was 10,000 tons (though with a decade of research I could have fitted the same capabilities in 8000). This was designated as a Heavy Cruiser at the time. . . but I'm working on the second generation of that ship at the moment and it will likely end up at the 10k mark once fully finished (even accounting for size efficiencies introduced). This will probably end up being a Cruiser and will encompass the 10-15k range with the smaller 6k vessel being redesignated as a frigate.
I'm guessing by the time I get to designing them my battleships will be in the 25-30k range.
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There's really two "schools" of thought on classification of ship hulls.
1. Classification by size. Most of us came from a SFB or Starfire background where the ships were classed this way.
2. Classification by function. This is more "realistic" but also the smaller following.
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Cruisers gotta cruise
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There's really two "schools" of thought on classification of ship hulls.
1. Classification by size. Most of us came from a SFB or Starfire background where the ships were classed this way.
2. Classification by function. This is more "realistic" but also the smaller following.
Just to be difficult, I came through SFB & Starfire, but I still tend to classify through function, though of late I don't use wet warship types very often, I have Scouts (SC) Patrol vessels (PV), Escort Vessels (EV), Missile Combatants (MC), Laser Combatants (LC), Kinetic Combatants (KC) (which are gauss/railgun jobbies) though I still call fighters fighters, carriers I usually call Motherships (MS), I also have Jump and Leader versions of a lot of those (J in front of designator for Jump, and L following the designator for Leaders), so for example a line of battle Jump drive and sensor/flagbridge equipped laser armed ship would be a Jump, Laser Combatant Leader (JLCL)
I think I just got sick of Destroyers in SPAAAAACE!
Matt
PS: I rarely build Plasma Carronade, Microwave etc armed ships, but you could probably extrapolate what I'd call them pretty easily
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Per my earlier promise this is the Ship Designation System (SDS) I use. It is a constant work in progress. I have 1.5 pages of notes for my next revision.
- Commissioned
- BB - Battleship
- Larger than a Cruiser (CC)
- Intended to provide offense as part of a Task Group (TG)
- BC - Battlecruiser
- Variant of a BB
- Trades defense for speed
- Intended to provide offence as part of a TG
- Intended to raid enemies due to speed
- BM - Monitor
- Variant of a BB
- Trades range and speed for defense and offense
- Intended to defend choke points due to defense and offense
- BN - Dreadnought
- Variant of a BB
- Trades speed for defense
- Intended to provide offense against enemy choke points as part of a TG due to defense
- CC - Cruiser
- Smaller than a BB and larger than a Destroyer (DD)
- Intended to independently protect auxiliaries and civilian vessels
- Intended to independently raid enemies
- Intended to independently scout
- Intended to provide offense when part of a TG
- CH - Heavy Cruiser
- Variant of a CC
- Trades speed for defense
- Intended to independently protect auxiliaries and civilian vessels
- Intended to provide both offense and protection when part of a TG due to defense
- CL - Light Cruiser
- Variant of a CC
- Trades defense for range
- Intended to independently raid behind enemy lines enemies due to range
- Intended to independently scout behind enemy lines due to range
- Intended to provide offense when part of a TG
- CS - Command Cruiser
- Variant of a CC
- Trades offense for sensors
- Intended to lead a TG due to sensors
- CV - Corvette
- Smaller than a Frigate (FF) and larger than a Patrol Craft (PC)
- Trades offense for speed
- Intended to independently patrol star systems and provide early warning by detecting enemy attacks due to speed
- DD - Destroyer
- Smaller than a CC and larger than a FF
- Unsuited for independent action
- Intended to operate in groups to protect TGs from enemy parasites
- Intended to operate in groups to protect Auxiliaries and civilian vessels from enemy parasites
- DE - Destroyer Escort
- Variant of DD
- Unsuited for independent action
- Intended to operate in groups to protect TGs from enemy munitions
- Intended to operate in groups to protect auxiliaries and civilian vessels from enemy munitions
- FF - Frigate
- Smaller than a DD and larger than a CV
- Unsuited for independent action
- Intended to operate in groups to delay, deter, or disrupt enemy raids
- Intended to operate in groups to thwart enemy scouts
- Intended to operate in groups to detect and expose stealthed enemies
- LC - Landing Craft
- Roughly the size of a PC
- Carried as a military parasite on a Landing Platform (LP)
- Intended to land ground forces on enemy Planetary Bodies (PBs)
- LD - Landing Defense
- Variant of an LC
- Carried as a military parasite on an LP
- Intended to protect LCs
- LP - Landing Platform
- Roughly the size of a CC
- Usually escorted by a TG for protection
- Mobile hanger with facilities to carry, deploy, recover, and replenish ground forces and military parasites
- Intended to carry LCs and LDs to land ground forces on enemy PBs
- MC - Mine Countermeasure
- Intended to clear enemy minefields
- Intended to hunt and destroy individual enemy mines
- ML - Minelayer
- Intended to create minefields
- Intended to lay individual mines to disrupt enemy activities
- PC - Patrol Craft
- Smaller than a CV
- Unsuited for independent action
- Trades defense and range for offense
- Intended to operate in groups in close proximity to PBs due to range
- Intended to operate in groups to delay, deter, or disrupt enemy attacks until additional defenses can respond
- Intended to operate in groups to threaten large enemy vessels due to offense
- VC - Vessel Carrier
- Roughly the size of a BB
- Usually escorted by a TG for protection
- Mobile hanger with facilities to carry, deploy, recover, and replenish military parasites
- Intended to carry military parasites and project force into star systems
- VE - Escort Carrier
- Variant of a VC
- Roughly the size of a CC
- Usually escorted by a TG for protection
- Mobile hanger with facilities to carry, deploy, recover, and replenish auxiliary parasites
- Intended to carry auxiliary parasites and support military parasites
- VL - Light Carrier
- Variant of a VC
- Roughly the size of a CC
- Usually escorted by a TG for protection
- Mobile hanger with facilities to carry, deploy, recover, and replenish military parasites
- Intended to carry military parasites and project force into star systems
- Auxiliaries
- AA - Ammunition Auxiliary
- Intended to replenish ammunition in TGs
- AB - Buoy Auxiliary
- Intended to deploy buoys
- AF - Fuel Auxiliary
- Intended to replenish fuel in TGs
- AH - Hospital Auxiliary
- Intended to recover life pods
- AM - Maintenance Auxiliary
- Intended to replenish maintenance in TGs
- AP - Pinnace Auxiliary
- Intended to transport leaders and teams
- AS - Salvage Auxiliary
- Intended to salvage wrecks
- GE - Geographic Survey
- Intended to perform geographic surveys of PBs
- GR - Gravitational Survey
- Intended to perform gravitational surveys of star systems
- RD - Destroyer Tender
- Intended to replenish DDs
- Intended to allow extended deployment of groups of DDs
- RP - Patrol Craft Tender
- Intended to replenish PCs
- Intended to allow extended deployment of groups of PCs
- TT - Transport
- Intended to transport ground forces
- Intended to replenish ground forces on LPs
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I wanted my setting to feel more like 1700s-1800s colonial politics than "world war II in space" which is what most people do. I read a lot of Horatio Hornblower and The baroque cycle. My fleets (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,6735.0.html) are fast and short ranged and very slow firing and emphasize single devastating broadsides.
I love those classical heavy broadside battles of the colonial times. This is one thing that really converted me in the Warhammer 40k world. Normally I am all for the graze and the noble they put into Star Trek designs, but this sluggish heaviness makes everything just so much more ..important. Impacting.
The ships you built there are still in the pattern though. By size I mean, the outfit with slow loading cannons is quite an original concept. Great that you played more for style instead of efficiency.
As far as I know, this is the only place where detailed and consistent posts are made for Aurora. I know Bay12 and a couple of other places had some AARs posted.
Mhm, I don't even remember where I found all the other games. I stumbled about a couple of sites when I researched Aurora over Google in my beginnings. I found at least one x-hundred pages thread where alot of people talked about it, but otherwise only singular game documentations on unspecialized sites.
@Jaque_Thay: So you found this measurement by yourself? Probably it is hard-coded into the human race genome, and only some mutations think of other things first.
@Maltay: Well, I can't wait to see the true size ratios. The Landing Platform as a narrow orbiter to send planetary assault shuttles is a really interesting idea. I can see it in front of my eyes.^^
There's really two "schools" of thought on classification of ship hulls.
1. Classification by size. Most of us came from a SFB or Starfire background where the ships were classed this way.
2. Classification by function. This is more "realistic" but also the smaller following.
Aha, I didn't see the Starfire thing yet. It can not explain it all, but definitely the strong roots.
A question: If I wanted to document a game (more for show and with story etc.), where do I put it here? There is the fiction section, but it seems rather enclosed.
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I love those classical heavy broadside battles of the colonial times. This is one thing that really converted me in the Warhammer 40k world. Normally I am all for the graze and the noble they put into Star Trek designs, but this sluggish heaviness makes everything just so much more ..important. Impacting.
The ships you built there are still in the pattern though. By size I mean, the outfit with slow loading cannons is quite an original concept.
Long nine naval cannons were the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the "reduced size laser" option. After that, I knew what direction my setting would take.
I also liked how special ships were back then. Most colonial superpowers had between 50 and 100 ships in the age of the sail, for like, the whole planet. Captaining a cruiser was a huge deal. I primarily got into aurora because few other games accommodated the way I felt a space opera space navy should work. They go more for the WWII in space vibe I was talking about. Aurora makes space feel bigger and lonlier and slower, so more like ships during the age of the sail. Also each ship has a lot more detail about it so you can run a fleet of 15 ships and still feel like you're controlling this big complex thing.
My ships are mostly in the pattern. you'll notice my "Pride of Bangalore" cruisers are the same size as my destroyers, which are both about 3 times the size of my frigates....but I also have cruisers that are 25,000 tons, the same size as my "battlecruisers", all of which are only about 5,000 tons lighter than my carriers.
It's hard to deviate from the norm when you're talking about ships under 30,000 tons. As we addressed earlier, there are seldom any reasons why you'd want one 50,000 ton ship instead of 2 25,000 ton ships.
I should add that I plan to design a lot of new ships sometime in the next few days. This has become a necessity since several forum members destroyed a sizable part (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,7278.0.html) of both my largest fleets.
Great that you played more for style instead of efficiency.
been hearing that all my life. It results in many friends but low wages.
Per my earlier promise this is the Ship Designation System (SDS) I use. It is a constant work in progress. I have 1.5 pages of notes for my next revision.
aaaand this is why aurora is my favorite game ever.
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I think the current "Cruiser\DD\Etc" sizes most people use are more gameplay than realism based.
My Survey Frigates, the Astronomer class, at 15k tons, take almost 2 years to construct. That seems about right for a smallish capital ship. Same for my Destroyers at the same size.
A BB Gettysburg, at 61ktons takes closer to 5years. Again, realistic. If making one of those took 6months, Id be worried that the design was too weak.
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Perhaps a bit late to the party, but this is a topic that always fascinates me, partially because I tend to build ships on the small size I've found out. I swear I remember a similar thread to this a year or two ago, maybe even a thread I started, that had some great info. Maybe I'll see if I can dig it up later.
But anywho, I'd just like to chime in that not only do I designate by function, but a good 75% of the time my "escorts" are larger than my mainline combatants.
Basic Battle Fleet Layout:
1-2 Command Ship (15k-ish psudo-capital ship, sometimes unarmed, sometimes minimal missile defense. Basically large sensor and jump tender)
6-10 Missile Cruiser (8-9k-ish capital ship, exclusively ASM launchers. May or may not have emergency sensors for if the CC is hit)
6-10 (Escort) Destroyer (8-9k-ish screening vessel, beam armed defense, frequently with emergency sensors, used for both missile defense and close ranged engagements (and as such, frequently has a 'main gun' that's a bit larger than the turrets))
Optional Ship Types:
Missile Escort (Destroyers) (12k-ish screening vessel, AMM armed ship, frequently with backup sensors, built in numbers equal to beam escorts)
Monitor/Cruiser/Battlecruiser (8k-ish capital ship, multipurpose beam offense ship, name depends on if it's intended for JP defense/independent operations/fleet support, has sensors for offense but generally lacks missile defense beyond CIWS if that)
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I always divide my warships in two categories :
Escorts :
DD - Destroyer - small weak ship designed to be used as a system defense in huge numbers
CL - Light Cruiser - bigger version of DD, primarily used for Anti-Missile defense
CA - Heavy Cruiser - similar to CL but with minimal Anti-missile defenses and with more ASM launchers
Capital Ships :
Usually they are designed to have far more range ( as in fuel ) and with shields and ECM's.
BC - Battlecruiser - large version of CL
BB - Battleship - large version of CA
DR - Dreadnought - large version of BC
SDR - Superdreadnought - large version of BB
and sometimes
MN - Monitor - huge and costly as frakk but "selfsufficient"
Utility ships:
MSS - Military support ship - mixed collier/tanker with civilian engines and almost no weapons but decent amount of armour/AMM's.
EX - Exploration ship - exactly what it sounds like - civi engines, some basic weaponry, grav/geo sensors.
Adding to that
Civilian Fleet :
Standart colony ship
standart cargo ship with Troop transports ( i dont make dedicated military troopships )
Terraformers
Salvager with tractor beam and salvage module, spare crew quarters ( for picking lifepods ).
and again sometimes i roleplay and built huge "astro Stations" with biggest active sensors possible, troop modules ( on-board marines ), hangar decks for small fighter/corvette/FAC sized ships ( Customs Police ) and tow them to JP's/various places around systems to feel somewhat like playing game in Honorverse ( ACS 4 lyfe ) ;)
Oh and i dont bother myself with Carriers ... too much micromanaging ( good salvo and 1 fighter wings suddenly divides into 5 parts coz they had various engine hits, fuel tanks etc ).
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Ever since the engine overhaul, I've pretty much based my classes around the new engines. Fuel efficiency is a big thing now, so I almost always use 50 HS engines, which sets a lower bound on practical full warships at around 6000 tons. This is a bit of emergent gameplay, so might be one reason why there's some standardization between different players.
Beyond that, I divide by a combination of size and purpose. Frigates and Destroyers are both single engine craft, for instance; frigates are designed as support/point defense ships, destroyers are dedicated fast combatants. So a destroyer might well be smaller than a frigate to give it the extra speed on a single engine, and have a spinal laser or large missile tubes; a frigate would be designed to keep pace with larger vessels, so have less speed but some sort of turreted PD or anti-missile tubes. A larger multi-engine version of the destroyer (fast, no frills anti-ship vessel) might be called a battlecruiser, whereas a slower general purpose vessel would be a heavy cruiser.
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Ever since the engine overhaul, I've pretty much based my classes around the new engines. Fuel efficiency is a big thing now, so I almost always use 50 HS engines, which sets a lower bound on practical full warships at around 6000 tons. This is a bit of emergent gameplay, so might be one reason why there's some standardization between different players.
There is "a bit", and then there is everyone!. ;)
I see this, and talked about it quite in the beginning above why this makes sense. ...But who cares? This is Sci-Fi. The "Fi" stands for fiction. ...Do what you want! ;)
..At least someone should do it.
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Personally, I build a 50HS Commercial engine, and then a 20HS Military engine with similar power and worse efficiency.
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Yeah, my designs tend not to be very fuel efficient. I also tend to have fuel shortages. Wonder if there's a connection :P
To be fair, I typically use size 10 engines, but this last game I've been using size 5 engines (default). I've not really noticed a difference in terms of fuel, but even just that little bit extra flexibility in design helps a lot I've found. I'm orders of magnitude more happy with my ships this campaign than I ever have been before.
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So, just to complicate matters further, I do both size/function designation. The modern US Navy does it the same way. In actuality, ship naming conventions were not very static in historical navies.
Great example of this would be the age of sail. While ship types were defined by role, they we often designated by sailing rig. So, that would be like designating Aurora ships by engine type. Examples would be Barque, Brig, or Schooners.
Then you have the "class" system that arises in the 18th century. Ships of the line, as the Royal Navy rated them, were rated by decks, and number of guns. 1st Rate ships, were big ships, with mulitiple decks, and a large number of guns. As the times changed, 1st Rate ships, that were still in service, were down rated. The system got confusing, as ships less than 6th rate (still often called frigates), were "unrated" and generically called "sloops".
So in this case, my ships are broken out something like this;
Military
Fighter (pretty self explanatory), can be Light, Medium, or Heavy based on size and loadout.
FAC- short ranged, high speed, low endurance system based attack craft. Could be missile or gun armed
Gunboat- long ranged, longer duration small combatants (usually in the 1000 ton range, but have multi-month endurance)
CT- Corvette- Light patrol craft, system based, or lightweight long endurance warp point guards. Usually 5000 tons or less.
FF- Frigate- Patrol craft, generally smaller than destroyers, usually around 6,000 tons or so. Multi-role, designed for solo or small squadron ops, and cheap. Could be missile armed, but usually gun armed.
DD- Destroyer, fleet combatant, around 8,000 tons or so, gun armed. Single role ships.
DDG- Missile destroyer
ES- Escort- smaller destroyer sized or less anti-missile ships
CE- Escort cruiser, fleet escort, usually light cruiser sized or a bit larger
CL- Light cruiser, usually 9,000 tons or more, smallest capital ship for a fleet leader role
CA- Cruiser, gun armed, 12,000 tons or more
CG- Cruiser, missile armed, 12,000 tons or more
BC- Battlecruiser, could be either gun or missile armed, 15,000 to 18,000 tons. BC's are optimized for speed. I usually use these as the center of a gun fleet.
BB- Battleship, gun armed, 18,000 tons or so,
BBG- Battleship, missile armed, 18,000 tons and up
CVE- Escort carrier, usually a dedicated system defense or interdiction carrier. These are used to get some fighters into a system for long durations. Not for fleet use.
CVL- Light carrier, smaller than the usual fleet carrier, usually 1 to 2 squadrons, meant for smaller fleets or high speed fleets.
CV- Carrier, usually 4 to 5 squadrons, standard fleet carrier
CVH- Heavy carrier, 5 or more squadrons, major fleet combatant, usually command ship for the fleet, space control ship
CVA- Assault carrier, heavily armed and armored carrier meant to go in a warp point assault
In my case, patrol ships, or ships operating alone, tend to be multi-role capable. So, for example, my patrol frigates would be fast, gun armed, but have full sensors. Fleet warships are optimized for specific roles, and don't waste space on unnecessary systems.
As my ships change, the roles and designations may change as well. Especially as ships refit. I also tend to reclass ships as they are rolled out of main line service, and are not slated for refit.
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Its worth noting that the meaning of ship classifications has changed over time in real life. The first ship to be designated a Destroyer weighed in at 290 tons. Arleigh Burke-class destroyers are close to 10,000 tons. A Napoleonic-era Frigate had roughly the same role as a pre-WWI Cruiser and the only reason modern Frigates aren't called Sloops instead is a whim of the Royal Navy Admiralty.
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In my current game, the Terran Union Navy uses the following classifications:
CO - South Carolina class - 6,200 tons
SS - Cleveland class - 6,000 tons
DD - Portland class - 9,000 tons
DE - Brooklyn class - 10,000 tons
FF - Iowa class - 10,000 tons
CA - Fletcher class - 15,000 tons
BC - Arleigh Burke class - 21,000 tons
AT - Ticonderoga class - 23,000 tons
BB - North Carolina class - 28,000 tons
CV - Lexington class - 30,000 tons
CVA - Tarawa class - 30,000 tons
Then my fighters:
F-101 Lightning fighter - 235 tons
F-102 Thunderbolt fighter-bomber - 350 tons
F-103 Lancer heavy fighter - 500 tons
So it's a mix of size and function. DD and DE are for AMM and PD, respectively, FF is for ASM, CA is dual-purpose beam warship, BC and BB are full beam warships but BC is faster so it can hunt down lonely enemy ships, AT is for hostile landings, CVA is for jump point assaults and CV is for general fleet duty. SS is a stealth scout. CO is an experimental meson-armed PD platform.
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Then my fighters:
F-101 Lightning fighter - 235 tons
F-102 Thunderbolt fighter-bomber - 350 tons
F-103 Lancer heavy fighter - 500 tons
I would have gone
F-101 Vodoo
F-102 Delta Dagger
F-103 Thunderwarrior
followed up by
Starfighter
Thunderchief
Delta Dart
though after this it gets a little weird with either
Super Super Sabre, or Maneater (the F-107 was never assigned a real name)
Rapier (F-108)
F-109 was briefly assigned to the B variant of the F-101 Voodoo
Spectre (F-110, eventually became the F-4 Phantom II)
Aardvark
sorry for the derail, I love the Century series!
Matt
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To reply on the original question on this thread I think the main reason why so many people end up using ships at around the same sizes and think that a 20k ship is a very large ship is how things scale up in cost, both resource and time wise with size.
Bigger engines and jump drives can be really expensive in research so make it prohibitive to build large ships using such components. Large naval yards is expensive and time consuming to build and large ships can be cumbersome to upgrade if you also have few large yards and several types of large ships. Then there is the thing about maintenance facilities that you need to construct wherever you want to place your ships.
In general you are better of slowly increase the size of your yards with time and technology increase. This way you can also take more advantage of technology such as cheaper expansion of yards etc...
It all depend on the setting you play in. If you play in a setting with multiple factions and there is full competition to maximise your profits then there is not time to invest in monster ships at lower technology levels. If you play a single Earth empire against the AI you can more easily go after more wasteful strategies, or optimise your resource gathering without fear of having them occupied or destroyed.
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I would have gone
F-101 Vodoo
F-102 Delta Dagger
F-103 Thunderwarrior
followed up by
Starfighter
Thunderchief
Delta Dart
though after this it gets a little weird with either
Super Super Sabre, or Maneater (the F-107 was never assigned a real name)
Rapier (F-108)
F-109 was briefly assigned to the B variant of the F-101 Voodoo
Spectre (F-110, eventually became the F-4 Phantom II)
Aardvark
sorry for the derail, I love the Century series!
Matt
I usually assign my fighters names alphabetically. F-1 Arbalest, F-2 Ballista, etc.
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I usually assign my fighters names alphabetically. F-1 Arbalest, F-2 Ballista, etc.
I actually trend towards a system similar to NATO's codenames for Soviet aircraft, ie Fighters get names beginning with F (Fulcrum, Foxbat, Fencer, Figjam(honestly!)) bombers with B (Badger, Blackjack) recon fighters with R (Rascal, Renegade)
Matt
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I would have gone
F-101 Vodoo
F-102 Delta Dagger
F-103 Thunderwarrior
followed up by
Starfighter
Thunderchief
Delta Dart
though after this it gets a little weird with either
Super Super Sabre, or Maneater (the F-107 was never assigned a real name)
Rapier (F-108)
F-109 was briefly assigned to the B variant of the F-101 Voodoo
Spectre (F-110, eventually became the F-4 Phantom II)
Aardvark
sorry for the derail, I love the Century series!
Matt
I love the starfighter, who cares that it was a deathtrap, I always use it near the beginning of a campaign.