Thinking Out Loud

[MehMuffin]

Two thoughts:

1)  Would you change the size breaks for fighter/GB/Corvettes (bridgeless ships) etc?  I was originally going to say you'd need to up the threshold for bridgeless ships, e.g. to 1200 tons, but while typing this I realized that the other way to go would be to introduce fatigue rules:  the difference between a fighter and a frigate is that the frigate has ~3x the crew-per-system that a fighter does, and that the frigate has crew quarters.  So to get away from the arbitrary 1000-ton discontinuity you'd probably want to set things up so that if the crew, on average, is on duty more than e.g. 40% of the time (which is a bit higher than 3x but a bit lower than 2x) then fatigue levels begin to rise.  Similarly, if the crew doesn't have enough "resting space" then the fatigue levels also rise.  So for a fighter you just need 1 shift of crew and a place for them to work at their station; for something like a gunboat (i.e. short duration littoral warfare) you'd need 3x crew per station but only 3x (or even 5x) the space (which would induce fatigue levels to start to grow after a few days), and for a frigate (i.e. blue water, arbitrarily long deployment) you'd need 3x crew and 5x (or even 10x) the space.

2)  This has the potential for a LOT of micromanagement, both at the design level and at the operational level (if you introduce fatigue levels).  In essence you'd be re-introducing readiness states if you go with fatigue rules, and the fatigue rules are what I think make the crew quarters change worth it.  Similarly, you already need to pay a lot of attention to fuel in Aurora if you use GB/FAC and/or fighters - I'm a bit concerned that requiring even more planning would lead to the same sorts of problems we saw with maintenance.  It certainly shouldn't be the case that a tanker uses 70% of the fuel on itself during a deployment, nor that a carrier can't refuel its fighters from on-board resources (which is almost the case now).  Although maybe that means that fighter/FAC combat radii would go WAY down and we'd get as big a tactical shift as when you introduced realistic missile engines.

So I'm torn.  I don't see a lot of need to disrupt the current game playability balance just to make crew quarters bigger.  OTOH if you put in fatigue that would put a real continuum behind things like the readiness/surprise rules in SF, and the "Below 1000 tons you don't need a bridge" rule in Aurora.

John

I could see this bring a need for much larger crew accommodation on board carriers, as fighter crews would lose energy/fatigue while aboard their craft, and have extended launch times as the crews won't be spending their time in their fighters while docked, so having extra shifts of pilots would be beneficial to fighter launch times.
Also, in NA, it would be nice to see a tractor beam array installation, allowing ships to enter colonies with enough at full speed and use it to slow down. A sort of colony based braking system, if you will.

[Thiosk]

I would suggest crew fatigue be essentially rolled into the maintenance mechanic, such that maintenance clock puts a modifier on crew grade and or task force training.  A year of overhaul to reduce four years of active service (a length unheard of in my empire) is an nice shore leave, for instance.  While I don't object to the concept, what could amount to an additional clock that regularly needs attention doesn't really add much.  We already need to tool shipyards (1-6 months), build ships (a year, or more, sometimes), train them (1-2 years), and then overhaul (4-8 months out of the gate, just to fix issues after training).  Ships must be overhauled for approximatly 25% of their active service time (not in port).

Thats already a lot of down time, and since all of my maintenence is done at citizen'd colonies, they don't need any more.

[xeryon]

I agree on crew fatigue.  It would add a lot of realism but also add one more maintenance element to keep track of.  I do like the overall concept of making your crew matter though.  By making systems function improperly with casualties and making functioning life support systems a requirement.  Missiles don't launch without FC, ships don't move without engines, but crew live just fine with no life support modules functioning after a battle?!?

Scaling crew and balancing the crew numbers needed would be nice.  An epicly large carrier should require a vast number of crew and a freighter shouldn't need as many as it does.  In our modern age ocean freighters operate with crews of 10-15 and a battleship of similar displacement can have hundreds, if not thousands of crew.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

For the fuel, i don't know, i guess i always pictured that the space ships would go to some form of reactor design for power and propulsion...at least larger ships. Kinda of like how the US Carriers are nuclear while the Destroyers are gas turbine. And isn't the Cassini satelite nuclear..but not sure thats used for propulsion in any way...prob not. Guess i just envisioned larger ships going that way...some reactor tech were fuel is measured in years. Fighters/missles i agree may use more fuel.

Nuclear powered navy ships use that nuclear power to turn a screw which pushes against the water. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction so the ship moves forward. Unfortunately in space there is no water to push against so you need propellant. That gets thrown (somehow) out of the back of the ship and the equal and opposite reaction pushes you forward. A chemical rocket and a nuclear thermal rocket both need this propellant - the nuclear engine is just more fuel efficient. The nuclear thermal engine designed in the sixties is about twice as efficient as contemporary chemical rockets. See the Nuclear vs. Chemical section in this Wiki article for the details. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_thermal_rocket

In other words, nuclear powered spacecraft still need a lot of propellant, even though the mass of the actual reactor fuel is minimal in comparison. Nuclear powered spacecraft could use electrical engines such as VASIMR, which are far more fuel efficient, but the thrust is extremely low.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

- Do you plan to bring over the Newtonian engine rules? I mean the freely designable engine size, with larger engines being more efficient, no differentiation between commercial and military engines etc.

Yes, probably if I make the other changes I would do that as well.

Here is the section on NA engine design for those who haven't seen it. An Aurora version would use similar principles but based on speed rather than acceleration. This would remove the current concepts of FAC engines and fighter engines and allow much greater freedom in engine design. You could also have twin engine "fighters".

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,4329.msg42917.html#msg42917

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Just a first impression, by increasing fuel consumption, the smaller ships are going to have really ultra short range trips. Giant battleglobes full of fuel or full of attack ships or both to get to the next system to attack.

If fuel consumption increases, I would probably change to an NA engine design system where the penalties for high powered drives are much less.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Would be a nice time to allow the construction of star bases. Maybe orbiting a gas giant, defending the sorium extraction operations and allowing the fleet to refuel and resupply.

Countless possibilities.

A star base in terms of a large, combat capable base is just a ship without engines. You can build one as you would build a ship.

Steve

[Moonshadow101]

A star base in terms of a large, combat capable base is just a ship without engines. You can build one as you would build a ship.

Steve

I think the concern there is the maintenance. Towing a massive spacebase back to earth for maintenance is an awful thing to have to do, and if we're orbiting a gas giant, then there's no option for local maintenance at all.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Two thoughts:

1)  Would you change the size breaks for fighter/GB/Corvettes (bridgeless ships) etc?  I was originally going to say you'd need to up the threshold for bridgeless ships, e.g. to 1200 tons, but while typing this I realized that the other way to go would be to introduce fatigue rules:  the difference between a fighter and a frigate is that the frigate has ~3x the crew-per-system that a fighter does, and that the frigate has crew quarters.  So to get away from the arbitrary 1000-ton discontinuity you'd probably want to set things up so that if the crew, on average, is on duty more than e.g. 40% of the time (which is a bit higher than 3x but a bit lower than 2x) then fatigue levels begin to rise.  Similarly, if the crew doesn't have enough "resting space" then the fatigue levels also rise.  So for a fighter you just need 1 shift of crew and a place for them to work at their station; for something like a gunboat (i.e. short duration littoral warfare) you'd need 3x crew per station but only 3x (or even 5x) the space (which would induce fatigue levels to start to grow after a few days), and for a frigate (i.e. blue water, arbitrarily long deployment) you'd need 3x crew and 5x (or even 10x) the space.

I like this idea. You could set this as a parameter during design. You choose the intended operating mode for the ship and the design process assigns appropriate crew quarters and life support. During operations, you may suffer crew grade penalties based on either the length of time since "returning to base" or due to crew losses. Similar in a way to putting ground troops in drop modules for long periods. Could also introduce a penalty even for long-term style ships if they stay out too long due to morale issues. So you could have a regular "frigate style" operating mode for ships that would be out for 6-12 months (after that you start suffering morale/fatigue issues) and then some type of very high quality crew accomodations for survey ships and picket ships where a ship was going to stay out for years.

2)  This has the potential for a LOT of micromanagement, both at the design level and at the operational level (if you introduce fatigue levels).  In essence you'd be re-introducing readiness states if you go with fatigue rules, and the fatigue rules are what I think make the crew quarters change worth it.  Similarly, you already need to pay a lot of attention to fuel in Aurora if you use GB/FAC and/or fighters - I'm a bit concerned that requiring even more planning would lead to the same sorts of problems we saw with maintenance.  It certainly shouldn't be the case that a tanker uses 70% of the fuel on itself during a deployment, nor that a carrier can't refuel its fighters from on-board resources (which is almost the case now).  Although maybe that means that fighter/FAC combat radii would go WAY down and we'd get as big a tactical shift as when you introduced realistic missile engines.

There would be a little more management required at design time but not that much during play apart from checking the fatigue level when necessary. I might also up the system failure rate if crew "fatigue" is high since they are more likely to make mistakes during normal operations. If I up fuel consumption I would reduce the penalties for higher powered engines. Tankers would carry a lot more fuel than regular ships so I would estimate they might use 10-15%% of their own fuel rather than 70%.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I think the concern there is the maintenance. Towing a massive spacebase back to earth for maintenance is an awful thing to have to do, and if we're orbiting a gas giant, then there's no option for local maintenance at all.

If you put it in orbit of one of the moons, you could create a maintenance base on that moon use the existing maintenance modules. I've also considered some type of very large, expensive "self maintenance" module intended for bases. I just haven't found a plausible mechanic to prevent its use by very large warships.

Steve

[xeryon]

Yes, the maintenance issue is a bit lopsided.  I tried making a 1million ton "orbital base" by laying out my modules and adding a orbital habitat module to build it with earth industry and as a military craft the AFR% and such was astronomical.

[Thiosk]

There would be a little more management required at design time but not that much during play apart from checking the fatigue level when necessary. I might also up the system failure rate if crew "fatigue" is high since they are more likely to make mistakes during normal operations.

Perhaps another look at TF training is in order.  Training could increase the TF level to a certain level, the rest of which is fatigue.  A fresh crew would be able to hit a maximum of 100%, and a sleepy-mode crew would be running closer to 50%.

[Corik]

A star base in terms of a large, combat capable base is just a ship without engines. You can build one as you would build a ship.

Steve

But currently you can only do that turning off overhauls. Also Star Bases should function maybe like an amored and combat capable habitat. People live there, trade is made, ships dock, resupply, refuel... I don't know, more things. I really think that could be a very nice addition to an already awesome game. However, I think you said that there are problems with this kind of "non-planetary population" ideas... so... I don't know, just my 2cent.

[Corik]

If you put it in orbit of one of the moons, you could create a maintenance base on that moon use the existing maintenance modules. I've also considered some type of very large, expensive "self maintenance" module intended for bases. I just haven't found a plausible mechanic to prevent its use by very large warships.

Steve

Easy. Don't allow the use of that component with engines.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Easy. Don't allow the use of that component with engines.

I'm not a big fan of arbitrary rules . There needs to be some plausible reason why it doesn't work with engines that also maintains internal consistency within the game.

Steve