Newtonian Aurora

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Steve can yo outline how NPR will make decissions on the size of theyr engines and weapons? Ai is a small hobby of mine so it would be pretty nice to know how they wll handle this "problem".

I haven't even thought about it yet. I think I will probably scrap the code I already have in terms of NPR ship design and start from scratch .

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

And right as I posted that you added another post to the rules page.

Re-reading your Railgun rules I realized that your heat-dissipation mechanics were a little contrary to "real life".

The heat generated by each railgun shot which needs to be dissipated is currently equal to the power of the railgun. If I read you right a 1000 MJ railgun with 25% efficiency would generate 1000 MJ of heat which needed to be dissipated. The way to do that which would be more realistic is to have the waste energy be the component that heats the railgun. That way in the above case the railgun draws 4000 MJ from the homopolar batteries, transfers 1000 MJ of that to the projectile, and the remaining 3000 MJ heats the railgun and needs to be dissipated.

If you did this there would now be two techniques which increased the rate of fire, the Heat Dissipation Rate and the Efficiency. For example lets say that our railgun dissipates 100 MW, in the above 25% efficiency scenario it would take 30 seconds to fully dissipate and be ready to fire. If you then increased the efficiency to 30% you now only pull 3333 MJ from the batteries, not only that, but you only heat your railgun with 2333 MJ, meaning that you are now ready to fire in 23.3 (25 in the game) seconds.

If you did this though you may want to cap the efficiency techs at below 100% though, otherwise you won't be producing any heat and your railguns will be able to fire as quickly as you can push power into them (which may not be a bad thing, gameplay-wise).

Yes, I think someone else has mentioned this as well, earlier in the thread (unless that was you too . I will make a change along these lines when I get back to looking at railguns and lasers. Recently I have been concentrating on the missile design code.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Steve will shields/armor acount the solar-wind? As in would getting to near to a star vaporize your armor/shields?

I have been considering some type of occasional particle impact for fast moving ships, with the frequency based on distance travelled and local particle density and the impact energy based on relative speed and particle size. This is how I might model nebula systems, or more localised dust clouds. I hadn't considered solar wind or temperature but now you have mentioned it I will look into it at some point.

Steve

[Maltay]

Solar wind and temperature may more easily be modeled as static values based on size/number of stars in a system if it gets too confusing.  Certain technology thresholds to not take damage, otherwise, hope you brought enough reactors/armor.

[UnLimiTeD]

Got one more question:
How will the new system account for the difference between weight and volume?
Considering a 20k ton Ship often costs less than 6k Minerals, even assuming theres an equal amount of abstracted away standard materials (sadly^^) and air and whatever, they are likely to be a third lighter.
I assume an empty freighter will will weight less than 10k tons with that system, and then load another 25 for travel?

[Antagonist]

On AI:  Would it be possible to code this as a script?  An external open source bit of code that gets loaded and run at runtime.  One that others can customize.

I ask since AI is not your speciality, yet is one of the complaints about current NPRs, and will be even worse with the much more complex system.

[Hawkeye]

Got one more question:
How will the new system account for the difference between weight and volume?
Considering a 20k ton Ship often costs less than 6k Minerals, even assuming theres an equal amount of abstracted away standard materials (sadly^^) and air and whatever, they are likely to be a third lighter.
I assume an empty freighter will will weight less than 10k tons with that system, and then load another 25 for travel?

As I understand it, current Aurora works not with mass, but more with displacement. That´s how a freighter that can carry 25.000 tons of stuff around, "weights" 40k no matter if full or empty.
Of course, with Newtonian Aurora, this would have to change, I guess.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Got one more question:
How will the new system account for the difference between weight and volume?
Considering a 20k ton Ship often costs less than 6k Minerals, even assuming theres an equal amount of abstracted away standard materials (sadly^^) and air and whatever, they are likely to be a third lighter.
I assume an empty freighter will will weight less than 10k tons with that system, and then load another 25 for travel?

Volume, which is used for armour and shield size and for targeting, is based on the full load mass of the ship. Current ship mass, which is used for acceleration rate, is based on the standard mass plus anything being carried by the ship, such as fuel, ordnance, cargo, colonists, etc.. Your guess on the empty freighter is almost spot on, based on the design in my test game. The base design is less than 10k but the full load mass is another 26k because the ship is also carrying 1000 tons of fuel.

Atlas class Freighter    9,393 tons standard     35,393 tons full load      28 Crew     431.1 BP
Length 220m     Armour 1-176     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 8    Max Repair 37.5 MSP
Active Signature 707.86    Thermal Signature 375    EM Signature 0/0
Cargo 25000    Cargo Handling Multiplier 5   

Commercial Ion Drive (5)    Total Power 37.5 MN    Fuel Use 1299 litres per hour   Exp 2%
Full Load Acceleration  1.06 mp/s (0.11G)    Hourly Acceleration 3.81 km/s    Daily Acceleration 91.54 km/s
Standard Acceleration  3.99 mp/s (0.41G)    Hourly Acceleration 14.37 km/s    Daily Acceleration 344.93 km/s
Fuel Capacity 1,000,000 Litres    Delta-V Budget (Full Load) 2,979 km/s    Full Burn Duration 32.1 days

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

On AI:  Would it be possible to code this as a script?  An external open source bit of code that gets loaded and run at runtime.  One that others can customize.

I ask since AI is not your speciality, yet is one of the complaints about current NPRs, and will be even worse with the much more complex system.

Interesting idea. The current AI is scripted to a certain extent. There are various NPR actions and various NPR ship types. Each ship type has a list of actions to consider in order of priority. Which actions a ship type considers and the order of those actions is very easily changed.


Steve

[UnLimiTeD]

So, does that mean that the aforementioned Freighter will also cost nearly 10k Minerals?
Because otherwise, it seems way less dense than 'solid metal' and should obviously be even lighter.
Or where is the mass coming from?
I remember that in current Aurora, a Ship is often around 1/4th of it's mass in mineral price.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

So, does that mean that the aforementioned Freighter will also cost nearly 10k Minerals?
Because otherwise, it seems way less dense than 'solid metal' and should obviously be even lighter.
Or where is the mass coming from?
I remember that in current Aurora, a Ship is often around 1/4th of it's mass in mineral price.

The freighter is 431.1 BP so it will should require 431.1 tons of minerals (although I occasionally forget to match up the minerals to the cost in the DB). The rest is assumed to be made of up 'normal' easily accessibile materials.

Steve

[UnLimiTeD]

Well, then shouldn't be assumed that those materials not all have the same density?
Like, Air inside, or various alloys used for whatever?
That would allow for lightweight builds or the like.^^
Currently, a fully loaded ship seems to have the same weight as displacement, and I find that hardly believable.
Higher level armor for example should weight a bit more (on average).

As for armor, if a laser just warms up a ship from being too weak, will several lasers hitting in the same increment be able to penetrate?
It probably wouldn't have an effect on kinetics.
After all, you're factoring heat in weapons.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Well, then shouldn't be assumed that those materials not all have the same density?
Like, Air inside, or various alloys used for whatever?
That would allow for lightweight builds or the like.^^
Currently, a fully loaded ship seems to have the same weight as displacement, and I find that hardly believable.
Higher level armor for example should weight a bit more (on average).

As for armor, if a laser just warms up a ship from being too weak, will several lasers hitting in the same increment be able to penetrate?
It probably wouldn't have an effect on kinetics.
After all, you're factoring heat in weapons.

I could have different volumes and densities for each component but that would be a lot of work to add a level of complexity that probably doesn't add a lot in terms of gameplay. I have to draw a line somewhere.

I won't be modelling the combination of several lasers hitting nearby. The beams could be many metres wide and figuring out exactly where they overlap would be a lot of work. If they need to overlap to have an effect they are extremely weak anyway and losing an extra few boxes of armour in one layer isn't going to make a huge difference to a battle. Anything I spend time on means I am not spending time on something else and I have to try and use my (unfortunately limited) time to work on things that will have the most significant impact on gameplay.

Steve

[jseah]

Read the post on missile warheads.  Awesome beyond words. 

When Newtonian Aurora comes out, the first thing I will be doing is designing a war fleet designed to throw a huge volley of nukes and going out fishing. 

I can already imagine the feeling of getting that one glorious contact nuke off and wiping out an entire dreadnought or space station. 

Code: [Select]

1x Lancelot Anti-ship missile detonates at 0 range
Radia 005 is hit by *ridiculous* GJ of damage at *ridiculous* MJ per square meter
Radia 005 is destroyed
Then again, that could happen to me too.  =|  Poor poor freighters. 

[Din182]

There should be some special message when you do so much damage with a nuke that the ship no longer exists in any form.