Newtonian Aurora

[Panopticon]

I kinda like it, missiles will no longer be king, thanks to the extended flight times and just generally lower accuracy as well as improved railgun and laser damage, but you still want to use them because of the unmatched damage potential.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Does that mean that Sensors can't be turned off?
Or that they always draw energy despite being shut down? (Electronics in active standby, so to say)

You can shut them down and they won't draw energy. In effect, power will be used for sensors if they are active. If not, that power will be sent to the batteries (HPGs) if there is capacity.

I also second the question if a Projectile can hit the shields but miss the ship.
I suppose minimum distance will be reduced massively?

I have changed this now so that shields are much closer to the ship. I probably won't bother now with a "hit shields, miss armour" scenario.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I kinda like it, missiles will no longer be king, thanks to the extended flight times and just generally lower accuracy as well as improved railgun and laser damage, but you still want to use them because of the unmatched damage potential.

I'll see how it plays out but I think missiles with a nuclear warhead will be a distraction you can't ignore rather than a serious threat to a well defended fleet. They will be effective though in an anti-missile role. It may be different for missiles with other types of warheads, depending on the range from the target at which they can detonate and still be effective. I'll see how it works out when I get into the maths.

Steve

[bean]

In a way, I am designing Newtonian Aurora without a really detailed idea of how the combat is going to play out. I am trying to create realistic systems and then I will see how everything interacts and how that drives tactics. It will be fun to find out

I applaud this attitude.  We are honestly unsure how this sort of thing will work in reality, and it's going to be highly dependent on the technological parameters involved.  Keep up the good work.

For lasers, I have a better equation for beam radius at target then the conventional one:
Radius =(range (m) *SQRT((1.22*wavelength (m)*beam quality)^2+(jitter (radians)*mirror diameter (m)*2)^2))/mirror diameter (m)
Beam quality is a dimensionless number that is the ratio of the spot size to the diffraction-limited spot size.  For Aurora, it's going to be very close to 1, but still might have a significant impact.
Jitter is probably going to be measured in (tens at most) nanoradians.  250 is my guess for a near-to-mid future model.  This would help reign in large mirrors, as the spot size converges to jitter*range.

I'll see how it plays out but I think missiles with a nuclear warhead will be a distraction you can't ignore rather than a serious threat to a well defended fleet. They will be effective though in an anti-missile role. It may be different for missiles with other types of warheads, depending on the range from the target at which they can detonate and still be effective. I'll see how it works out when I get into the maths.

Steve

Missiles are not a serious threat to a well-defended fleet now, at least in my games.  I will admit to being killed by long-range missiles a few times early in my career, so I may be going overboard.

[UnLimiTeD]

I might be drooling in my pudding right about now.
Sweet.
I somehow expect it to get worse anytime, but it gets better.

[Din182]

What would be nice is if you could have more parameters for armour. Like if you could make it so that armour was more resistant to lasers, but cost more minerals, or was denser, but again, cost more minerals.

It would also be nice to be able to have multiple types of engines on a ship at once. A really fuel efficient, slow burning engine for getting up to speed to go FTL, and a really powerful, fuel-hungry engine that is used when the ship is under attack for emergency (de)acceleration.

[Elouda]

It would also be nice to be able to have multiple types of engines on a ship at once. A really fuel efficient, slow burning engine for getting up to speed to go FTL, and a really powerful, fuel-hungry engine that is used when the ship is under attack for emergency (de)acceleration.

The problem with that is that the engines not currently in use are basically dead weight.

I already have a solution to this however, and it needs no extra game mechanics. Build the ship with the fuel hungry engines, and then build a seperate 'ship' thats just fuel efficient engines and fuel storage. Tractor the first ship with the second. When you get into combat, deploy your combat ship, leaving the dead weight behind.

I just hope we can turn off engines on tractored ship, otherwise this wont turn out as well as it could.

[UnLimiTeD]

Your "Dead weight" will speed into the enemy while your combat ship decelerates fast enough. 
I'd really like multiple speed options as well.
However, this could simply be the installing of thrusters.

[Din182]

The thing is, there's nothing stopping you from using both types of engines at the same time.

[Elouda]

The thing is, there's nothing stopping you from using both types of engines at the same time.

Except the fact that, in that case, you'd likely be better off with a single, more balanced engine design?

[Din182]

I guess it will depend on the exact formulas that Steve uses.

[bean]

By a strange turn of fate, I happen to have an equation for spacecraft with two engines. 
You begin by finding the mass ratio for each engine (M1 and M2), and the tank fraction as a fraction of remass (T1 and T2).  Be warned.  If they are both close to or above 2, the equation doesn't work.  Also, each engine is assumed to burn all remass while the others tanks are full.
Payload includes everything that's not tanks and remass.
total mass = (M1*payload)/(1-(T1*(M1-1))-((1-(1/(M2/(1-(T2*(M2-1))))))*M1))
Just in case Steve was actually considering adding it.

[GeaXle]

Steve, I was wondering, as missile explosion will be much more dangerous, will ship explosion (when destroy) have a dangerous impact if the rest of the fleet is close enough? Does fleet dispertion will be taken into acount?

Also, you mention stationary space station might be to easy of a target.  There could be "fortress shields" as in Nexus the Jupiter incident, or even Eve online.  They could be permanently turned on but regenerate extremely slowly.  This would avoid a single direct hit from very far, but let a siege fleet the possibility of destroying the station.

Overall, this looks so exciting, and all the things you describe look like the game I have been hunting down for so long.  Thanks!

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Steve, I was wondering, as missile explosion will be much more dangerous, will ship explosion (when destroy) have a dangerous impact if the rest of the fleet is close enough? Does fleet dispertion will be taken into acount?

Also, you mention stationary space station might be to easy of a target.  There could be "fortress shields" as in Nexus the Jupiter incident, or even Eve online.  They could be permanently turned on but regenerate extremely slowly.  This would avoid a single direct hit from very far, but let a siege fleet the possibility of destroying the station.

Overall, this looks so exciting, and all the things you describe look like the game I have been hunting down for so long.  Thanks!

Ship destruction is giving me a lot to think about. For example, there wouldn't be many stationary wrecks because any wreckage would have the same general velocity and heading as the destroyed ship. I think instead I will have several individual pieces of wreckage from a ship, with slightly diverging courses depending on the method of destruction. Each piece would contain minerals for scrap and potentially one or more intact components. You would have to detect them, chase them down and tractor them for salvage. They may also create something of a navigational hazard for other ships, especially fast moving ones. Or maybe the wreckage would be relatively intact if the ship was rendered a mission kill in some way, rather than complete destruction. Life support failure perhaps. Reactor failure could be far more catastrophic and result in an explosion that could damage other ships directly, rather than through debris.

Some type of huge shield is possible, although it would have to be truly gargantuan to resist very high speed projectiles or close-range nuclear detonations. Perhaps something planetary-based might be possible. I haven't given this area a lot of thought so far.

Steve

[ardem]

What about shields that are electro magnetic in nature, that tend to be further from the station then closer. Projectiles tend do be metallic in composition the job of the this shield is to not stop but change the course of the object, so if it can deviate it to miss the station.

Also if the station is orbiting a planet, it would not be stationary. Neither is the planet stationary, with all the influences of space from solar currents to gravity from other planets, long range projectiles that do not have course changing thrusters would more then likely miss. Firing the projectile would cause micro shift in angles in any particles direction so I doubt it would hit. It be like hitting a coin 20km away with a computer stabilised rifle, still not an easy thing to do.