hmm, i think the best way to control mothballing would be to have it as an extra stat to maintenance facilities. Default is 1000 tons (active) and maybe 100-200 Tons mothballed. So your mothballed fleet could on ever be 10-20% of your max maintenance capacity.

In addition to this the maintenance clock on the ship could also run but ten to twenty times slower and with no maintenance failures, that will happen when you reactivate the ship after 100 years with no activity quite quickly, unless you do some maintenance before you bring it on line.

I believe the lack of mothballing is deliberate as it allows players to build a massive navy without paying to maintain the ships until needed. This was IIRC something of an exploit in Starfire as it was possible to build ships and immediately mothball them to avoid paying maintenance... it would take some time to bring them back to readiness but much less time than building as many ships.

In Aurora, it is true that in some cases these ships can be outdated but I do not think this is generally true. For example, it is easy to build and mothball serviceable missile launcher ships which only need the latest missiles loaded to be effective in combat. Even with beam ships there are a lot of ways to get effective ships even if outdated. They will not be as efficient as new construction but the sheer mass of tonnage raised in a short time more than makes up for this.

Ultimately, I think for a mothball mechanic to be added to Aurora, there also needs to be some mechanics which prevent (or at least make impractical) building ships and immediately placing them into mothballs to build a larger fleet than a race can support. In real life, new naval ship construction is done because new ships are needed for some purpose, but Aurora doesn't really give a lot of reasons for new ship construction other than fighting NPRs and occasionally for PPV needs - and conversely, if you "have enough ships" there's no disincentive to build more (which would then be mothballed), whereas in real life political pressures and such make this usually an untenable prospect.

In Aurora the player have all the power over the government and the political climate and decide unilaterally how much economic resources are dumped into the military. Unless we role-play this part the sheer fact that space is so great and the opposition of NPR usually are not too challenging in general makes it quite easy to use a large part of the economy for military purposes at any time.

Personally I would like a reserve functionality to exist as it is realistic. If there is enough political incentive to build a large reserve fleet then I think it should be possible, the political game is up to the player to decide. If you are playing in a multi-faction game there still is the choice of investing the resources in expanding the industry or building a reserve fleet thus blunting the growth of the economy for some security in a possible conflict in the future that might never come.

It is not really optimal to build a large reserve fleet and have it mothballed instead of just expanding your industry and settle new colonies instead. It only is a good strategy if you happen to end up in a fight in the short term. Now... putting the majority of your fleet into reserve after a large conflict in order to save resource IS a good strategy.

Sure... when you build up for a large offensive you could use the reserve mechanic to make it cheaper, but if spies is a thing then it really does not work that well to cover it up in a multi-faction game. The opponent will be able to start build up their defences too and you enter into an arms race. It is quite common to have a big reserve on standby like you saw during the cold war for example. In real life there are several layers of reserve status as well, and it is used in most militaries today as well.

The issue is not the mechanic it is the lack of role-play to represent the political will to spend resources on military just for the sake of building it up. This is up to the player to decide in my opinion how to "abuse" the mechanics or role-play.

I have pointed out the real world situation. This may or may not fit with Aurora mechanics, that's up to Steve.

If you are basing Aurora on real world then mothballing should not have an extreme cost. However, if your ships spend 10 or 20 or more years in mothballs they will be significantly out of date. The USN was pulling ships out of mothballs only 5 years after they went in and fighting North Korea. If you are fighting an equal tech opponent in Aurora what use are you going to use your reactivated ships with green crews for? Warp point defence is the only thing that springs to mind and that's not a sure thing. They would be seriously out teched in deep space engagements.

If you have a large mothball fleet are you going to have the resources to refit every ship coming out of mothballs? Probably not, are going to have enough of a stock pile of spare parts and shipyard space to refit this fleet? Even that is not without cost. If you are only facing one opponent you shouldn't need your mothball fleet. When you need your mothball fleet you are probably facing Star Swarm or Invaders. I also doubt green ships  would be great against the Raiders either, although it might be interesting to see a Raider strike against a mothball fleet. You would also face a sudden surge on the demand for maintenance supplies.  If your Empire is big enough to do all that then the mothball fleet is just the cherry on top.

I was thinking about this too, though it differs a bit from your ideas.

1) Mothballed ships loose all crew grade & fleet training
2) Officers are unassigned and crew return to the "crew pool"
3) maintenance is dropped to about 20% of normal
4) to reactivate the ship it must be overhauled, then length of the overhaul would be dependent on how long the ship was mothballed
5) mothballed ships can not be upgraded/refit unless overhauled first.

Mothballed ships can still be destroyed, so keeping them in a secure location is vital.

If you base deep mothballing on the USN at the end of WWII The cost was ~$100 and one sailor per year for a destroyer and approximately 10X that for a fleet carrier or battleship.

The technique was the ship was refitted, fumigated and perishable stores removed. Then to move anything dismoutable into the ship. and close all internal hatches. The fire main was drained and dehumidified air was blown through the fire main which of course bypassed all the closed hatches as it was for damage control. In the bilge and other hard to get to places trays of desiccant were placed and replaced as required. 40mm, 5", 8" and 16" guns were placed in plastic igloos and desiccants again used. All machinery was sprayed with a wax in solvent which would coat the machinery in a waterproof coat, which would turn into extra lubrication when the machinery was reactivated. 

This worked very well and in 1950 when ships were required for the Korean war 319 warships of all types were reactivated in 9 months. That's about a day a ship!

It is arguable that an atmosphere and salt water are more corrosive than vacuum. Thus it should cost to mothball ships but once mothballed cost very little. They should have just been maintained, they will have no crew experience when reactivated and no maintenance supplies. But otherwise ready to go in a matter of days.

Source: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=USN+mothballed+fleet+you+tube&qpvt=USN+mothballed+fleet+you+tube&view=detail&mid=782B1403181C4C6831D3782B1403181C4C6831D3&&FORM=VRDGAR

In my opinion a readiness mechanic would serve the game some considerations to be honest.

True and agreed

I would increase the cost for actively maintain ships and then introduce a reserve status, not the same as mothballing a ship.

Correct, I find myself in agreement with Aurora mechanics as I don't like the mothballing concept. It allows you to overstretch your military power and allows you to replace ships on the go once they are lost without any penalty.

The downside of "reserve" status would be that the ship loose half of its accumulated crew and fleet training instantly and then 5% for each year it remains in the reserves, this represent that when the ship is reactivated it will have replaced allot of the crew.

I think that this is too harsh. A fleet in reserve should not be able to accumulate any crew experience and should lose its experience to a fixed amount altogether. That amount could be the average between the existing training grade and the standard crew grading to refill the crew. So if the crew is 100% and it is decided that half get lost in reserve mode when you will reactive the ship you'll get half crew at (depending on your level and commander bonuses) let's say 17%. You can do the math but this should result in roughly 58%.

When the ships are brought back into service it should then reactivate in the same manner as a ship undergoing overhaul, it also have lost half or more of its crew and fleet training. A ship in reserve only pay 25% of the MSP cost for the maintenance clock to be paused if at a maintenance facility or the clock runs at 25% of the pace if not at a location with enough maintenance capacity.

It is reasonable to think that a ship should take time to be reactivated.

MSP cost should then be increased by twice the cost as active ships are more expensive.

I think the above it's too arbitrary and partially untrue. I would actually work on the impact on the maintenance tonnage of the maintenance facilities. So if you have 50,000 tons you can serve 50,000 tons of ready ships or a certain amount of reserve ships + active ships. Eventually, each ship should have a reserve tonnage amount for maintenance purposes. For example, a 5,000 tons ship could count for 5,750 for tonnage maintenance while in reserve or any other amount that could be "fair". This should also result in more MSP usage without necessarily being utterly costly and will put enough pressure on maintenance locations and infrastructures. In terms of realism and balance, a ship or a plane costs way more while not running as it requires engine tests daily, oiling of components, engineering calibration, and more. We saw it with COVID and the number of Sailing ships being scrapped along with planes as they haven't been used for too long and they cost too much to maintain. The active ships have different costs as they consume fuel, ammunition, and manpower; they also may break and need repairs. these concepts are already in Aurora so the costs of an active ship compared to the ones of a reserve ship are already in for me.

This would force some choices on the players if they want their ships ready and with high experience and fleet training or save cost on putting their ships in the reserve for the next possible conflict. This would be a pretty realistic choice to make.

I agree that the readiness of the fleet should be a factor with more aspects that build and wait for training to go up.

You are probably right with that. Steve might not like it or it is not high up on the list. The PDC mechanic was a broken when it came to putting combat ships inside of them. My goal was not to circumvent maintenance mechanics, but to create a system for naval forces during peace times.

Hi lads,

I started playing my first 1.13 campaign, which is at 20% research speed and that got me thinking. Low research speed means that ships and their components stay competitive for a couple of decades without significant upgrades. This puts Aurora's space warships more in line with current naval vessels, as these take a lot of resources and time to build and sometimes serve for a generation or two. There is just a minor problem with it, when it comes to Aurora. Unlike real navies, there are no levels of readiness. What does that mean?
In Aurora, every warship is active and combat ready at all times at full maintenance cost. There are no reserve or mothballed ships, which can be reactivated in times of tension. Until reactivation, these ships would require significantly less mineral upkeep and maintenance capacity.
The disadvantage of the reserved or mothballed status would be a significant delay until the vessel is reactivated and ready for operations, during which the vessel can be engaged and surprised by enemy forces.
In terms of game mechanics, I would keep the current status and call it active service with full maintenance requirements and ready for immediate action. Ships in reserve status would have half the cost and half the crew on board, full ammunition and fuel, but would require one month for adding crew and shakedown. Ships that were in mothballed status start with 10% crew, no fuel, ammunition and MSP on board and require at least a year before being combat ready. To counter this, the maintenance would be reduced by 66%.