Official Suggestion Thread for 5.20 or later

[swarm_sadist]

Some ideas for carrier based combat management:

Have more types of hangar designs and technologies. Right now there are boat bays and hangars, which allow 250t and 1000t to be stored, launched, recovered, armed and maintained inside the ship. There is no launch time, or launch rate; all fighters can be launched in an instant. There is also no recovery rate at which fighters can be recovered. All fighters can be armed at the exact same time, all fighters are maintained and refuelled, and all fighters are stored in a way that requires no management.

If these are changed somewhat, you could have it so that a certain type of hanger is capable of storing fighters with very little weight, but lacks a function above. For instance, modern carriers have internal hangars to stored munitions and fighters not in active use to save space. These fighters cannot be launched quickly, but they can be stored efficiently and maintained inside a protected space. A special type of hangar space could easily be implemented in Aurora. This hanger could have a storage capacity of 1000t while only weighing 250t, but would require the player to move fighters to a launch hanger before they could be used.

Likewise, a hangar could have a limited amount of launches at once. A modern aircraft carrier has a limit of one launch every 30 seconds per catapult, with a trained crew. A crew grading for pilots could also determine how long it takes for the crew to reach their fighters, and for the inactive crew members to reach the hangar during emergencies.

[jseah]

This hanger could have a storage capacity of 1000t while only weighing 250t, but would require the player to move fighters to a launch hanger before they could be used.

I may like to mention that this makes no sense.  The hangar may weigh only 250t, but the fighters in it weigh 1000t. 

[Execrated1]

He was talking about the weight of the hangar deck only, not the combined weight of the hangar and any docked ships.   Though there is still the problem that we don't know what forces a hangar deck faces on a space vessel.   It might be that they face almost no force loads because of the zero-g environment, or they might face exaggerated loads.   Plus having the hangar deck weigh 1k tons saves Steve from having to create code that adjusts the weight of the carrier depending upon the ships currently stored in it.   We can assume the stressed of interstellar transit are such that ship carrying capacity is on a 1 to 1 basis.   For every 1 ton of ship you need to transport you need 1 ton of supporting structure.

And let me add that, after thinking about it, I agree with you.  Carrier mechanics could be re-worked to provide some very interesting tactical elements.  Imagine if you had to worry that a well aimed, or just plain lucky, attack could penetrate your carrier through the launch deck.  You'd then have to decide when and how to launch the compliment of fighters.  Also, if there was a delay to launching and retrieving ships, you might want to keep your carrier behind a screen of smaller ships to give it the time to do so.  Or you might want to have a number of fighters disembarked at all times.  Then you'd have to handle the logistics of a number of small craft needing to be refueled and resupplied while in flight.

[jseah]

Currently, hangars weigh 1050tons regardless of whether they have any fighters in them or not.  With 1000tons storage space.  So effectively, the hangar 'weighs' 50tons only. 

[sloanjh]

So it sounds like the suggestion boils down to something like splitting hangers/"boat bays" into 3 systems:

1)  Exterior ("XO") hanger:  This is the equivalent of the current hanger, i.e. allows instant launch.  The drawback is that it's outside the armor (i.e. there's just a big gaping hole to make the door), so one would two armor patterns - an "armored" pattern that has rows and columns for (ship mass - XO capacity) and a "total" pattern that has the rows and columns for ship mass (i.e. the current pattern).  Any armor box that is in the total pattern but not in the armored pattern is treated as a hit on the parasites (statistically distributed, so if there are no parasites it immediately penetrates).  In other words, this hanger is very similar to SF XO racks.  (Which brings up an intersting point - should box launchers fall into the same category of being outside the armor?).  The hanger system itself (the 50 tons) would still be inside the armor.  You might want to also think about having an efficiency penalty for reloads etc for parasites in external hangars.  The reason this type is "necessary" is for bolshoi parasites, where the carrier is mostly intended to act as a floating dry dock for maintenance/repair purposes.

2)  Interior hanger:  Works the same as the current one, except doesn't allow ANY launches.  In other words, it's acting like a missile magazine does not in Aurora.  Hits on this guys should be randomly distributed between the hanger itself (the 50 tons) and the ships inside it.  Note that this latter condition means that parasites might be able to survive destruction of the mother ship (albeit with potential damage) if direct fire or the explosion of the mother ship didn't kill them.

3)  Launch tubes:  These allow ships of a max size to launch/recover with a recycle rate.  In other words they're very similar to missile launchers.  Note that the max launch tube size is a limit on the max size of a parasite in internal storage.

In other words, I think the idea boils down to unifying launch mechanisms for parasites and missiles, both from a magazine/launcher point of view and from the way XO racks are treated (which I actually didn't realize until the middle of typing this up).  Note that from the missile side, this means that missiles in XO racks get hit first, so you'd better have flushed them before taking damage otherwise you run the risks of secondary explosions (albeit outside the armor).

John

[Execrated1]

Basically, yes.  Currently carriers are more akin to the Star Craft version than realistic ones.  They roam around space disgorging smaller vessels instantly to attack the enemy.  I'd like to see them work in a more believable manner.  A carrier designed for space warfare would need to protect it's interior storage and launching capabilities above all else.  You could either have a tube system, as you suggested, or a transfer system where the parasites are manned and prepared for launch, then moved to the exterior and accelerate away.  The recovery method would of course be the hardest part.  You wouldn't want to rely on a pilot maneuvering his ship into a tube or port only barely large enough to accommodate him.  So maybe a system along the lines of:

- Internal hangar space designed to store, repair, reload and maintain parasite crafts.

- A "lift" system that grabs the parasite, and then rotates it to the exterior of the carrier.

- A hangar door that can be opened to receive returning parasites.

This would give you the ability to also open the hangar door to quickly release a higher number of fighters at a greater risk of an enemy attack penetrating the ship.  We could also have to design hangars as we do missile magazines.  You'd decide upon the space for parasites, the number of "lifts" to move them to the exterior, the armor plating, the size of the hangar bay doors.  And maybe we could add magazine and crew spaces to make launching and reloading faster.

[MagusXIX]

I'd like to add that a mechanic for designing a ship's hangar should be an armor vs launch speed option.  You could design a launch hangar that is effectively a maze that favors high armor in exchange for a very low launch speed.  Or on the opposite extreme, you could have a launch "hangar" that is effectively just a completely exposed flat spot to which the fighters are secured that will ensure a launch rate which is as fast as possible (detach the fighter and it's launched) at the expense of having your "hangar" be completely exposed.

[Narmio]

I hate to be the devil's advocate here, because customisable hangars sound really cool, but what opportunities for strategic variation would they actually provide?  Current fighter combat engagement times and ranges are so long that I can't see how even quite large delays between launches would influence them.

I'm always in favour of complexity that adds additional strategic and tactical options (otherwise why would I be in this little corner of the Internet? , but not just complexity for the sake of it...

[Jorgen_CAB]

There would certainly be a strategical effect if there were a difference in the size of a craft you can launch and the size of the hangars itself. Currently a size 12000 hangar can effectively house a 12000 ton ship and launch it with no time delays.

We also have reload time of fighters that numbers in maybe half an hour or less depending on bonuses. If you added a few minutes here and there for boarding and relaunch it will actually matter in allot of circumstances. If it takes a fighter 60sek to launch and 90sek to land that is 2.5min for one fighter. If you want to launch a wing of five fighters and you only designed the carrier wit one launch bay for fighters of that size you just added an additional twelve minutes to the reload time of the squadron.

So (in my opinion) some change could benefit the game except more complexity. I really don't think it would be very much complexity either. I thin most people would think of it as quite intuitive that there is cap on size of a parasite and that it takes to time launch and land fighter crafts on a carrier.

[chrislocke2000]

I use fighters and carriers extensively in most of my games and would agree that unifying the hanger and launch system in line with missiles makes a lot of sense to me.

I've certainly had plently of engagements where the speed of reloading fighters has been important such that increased time for recovery and launch would have an impact of tactics used. I've also had a few encounters with facs and other ships getting very close to my carriers before being detected in which case launch times would have been a factor. They would also be very important for the use of carrier type vehicles in any warp point offensive or defensive actions.

[sloanjh]

And don't forget "Use It or Lose It By Having It Blow Up On Your Armor" for XO launchers, along with the criticism I've seen from lots of folk that box launchers should be the lowest launcher tech (rather than highest).  Presumably turning them into XO racks would solve that problem.  In fact, the new problem might be that it's not worth having launchers with internal magazines at all.  Hmmmm - that's essentially where the US and Soviet navies eventually went with VLS, although that was at the end of tech development.

So I guess that the unification would imply two kinds of "launch everything at once":  "XO" (where things are stored outside the armor, equivalent to a Harpoon or Sea Sparrow box launcher) and "Box" (the current highest launcher tech (inside the armor), equivalent to USN VLS).

A strategic game change would be to decide to go with XO or internal launchers (more protected but bigger and potentially lower ROF).  If using XO racks (which I suspect most would before box launcher tech was available) then you've got a tactical risk if you decide not to shoot yourself dry before the enemy has an opportunity to damage you.  They would also make an opposed transit by missile ships much more interesting

John

[Execrated1]

In reply to Narmino:

Currently we have carriers akin to those found in Starcraft.  They launch a bunch of smaller craft instantly, that then fly around and shoot things.  They come in for a reload, which can be done simultaneously, and then go out again immediately.  With the mechanics I suggested you would be limited by the size of the hangar, the speed you could launch and resupply them, how many you could launch at once, and how you wanted to recover them.  You might decide to have a hangar that can house 20 fighters, with a magazine to give them 2 reloads each, but only be able to launch 2 at a time.  I could decide to have a hangar that can house 10 fighters, with only 1 reload each, but I can launch them 5 at a time.  If we come across each other and neither of us has any fighters deployed, I'd have 10 fighters out in the time you had 4.  There could be a number of design options.  Overall size, lift capacity, hangar door size and armor, and crew quarters.  It would mean you had to choose how to handle the fighters.  Their ranges might be large, as they should be, but they aren't limitless and their magazines tiny.  You'd have to reload and resupply them, and you'd have to choose how.  Do you do it all at once, in stages, or do you keep your fighters in reserve until the enemy is weakened.  Of course, exactly how it would effect strategy can't be known unless it's tried.  If it didn't make things more tactical, we could always suggest it be removed lol.

[swarm_sadist]

I hate to be the devil's advocate here, because customizable hangars sound really cool, but what opportunities for strategic variation would they actually provide?  Current fighter combat engagement times and ranges are so long that I can't see how even quite large delays between launches would influence them.

I'm always in favour of complexity that adds additional strategic and tactical options (otherwise why would I be in this little corner of the Internet? , but not just complexity for the sake of it...

I would just like to point out that a modern carrier stores most of it's CAG inside it's hangars to reduce the wear and tear on them, store them more efficiently and helps reduce the overhead cost and time of MRO actions.

I would also like to point out that not all carrier forces are on full combat readiness all the time. While a carrier or destroyer can launch a fighter/helicopter within 30-60 seconds, it can take 30-45 minutes to launch a helicopter from cold storage. It takes time to refuel, rearm and check over. The readiness of a squadron could be reduced to improve maintenance or to reduce crew fatigue from constant alert status, at the cost of drastically increasing launch time. A B-52 squadron could take hours or days to get to combat readiness.

The strategic considerations are quite obvious as well. Would you prefer an air tender to refuel and rearm patrol craft? Or would you rather prefer advanced fleet carriers that can launch and recover hundreds of fighters? Or maybe just a shuttle attached to a destroyer analog?

[Conscript Gary]

I think any overhaul in this direction would be best accompanied by an overhaul of ship-to-ship transfers in general. Non-instantaneous refueling, missile handovers, speed changes, etc.

[crys]

maybe the hangars are more like thouse in Battlestar Galactica - with lots of launch tubes - or external hangers like the base stars