'Submarines'

[StarshipCactus]

The submarines need to be expendable after all, as they might run into gate camps, eh JP camps.

Hello fellow EVE Online player o7

[sadoeconomist]

I think sub-like designs have a clear niche if you have an undetected dormant jump point entrance into an enemy system, or if you're encountering the enemy in 'neutral' systems, but they have no real way to sneak past guarded jump points, so you often wouldn't be able to make use of them at all when advancing into enemy territory.  I think there are a few roles where a sub-like design would be useful, though:

• The classic commerce raider role - give a small ship with a cloaking device & low-powered thermal-signature-reduced engine a handful of very large slow-loading missile launchers, design some long-range two-stage missiles with ECM and huge ship-killing warheads to fit them, give them active sensors tuned to enemy commercial ship sizes, keep your sensor and MFC off until you find a thermal contact, turn them back off after your missiles hit and reposition using your stealth to avoid active sensors, have a 'sub tender' on the other side of the dormant JP with an appropriate-sized jump drive to let your subs transit, plus colliers/tankers/maintenance ships. . . I think you could build a semi-practical commerce raider at about 3000t, which is the maximum size a military ship can be to use the smallest-sized jump tender you can build with the earliest jump tech, which is pretty small and cheap for something that could kill a commercial ship many times its size
• 'Boomers' - you can target colonies using waypoints, so you can launch missiles at them from any point in a system even with a tiny MFC and no active sensor, which means you could hide a large and slow but stealthy long-deployment ship full of big box launchers with long-range colony-killing missiles far out beyond the outer reaches of a system and threaten any inadequately-protected colony with impunity, probably a good thing to sneak these into systems of NPRs you're currently neutral with when relations start getting bad so you can respond to the start of hostilities with a massive alpha strike
• Spy subs - use ELINT modules instead of missiles
• Special operations subs - stealthy dropships that can land company-sized units of marine commandos on poorly defended colonies without warning
• Fleet subs - ships that are stealthy but still fast enough to keep up with a battle fleet, can be used as scouts and sensor pickets
• Minelayers - I heard mines are bugged at the moment but minelayers can still be useful by dropping sensor buoys, stealth will let them do it safely closer to the enemy where they'd be useful
• Fighter tender - give a small cloaked ship boat bays and some extra supplies instead of missiles so they can resupply fighters while hiding in enemy-held systems, one of these could tend a large number of stealth scout fighters

[Droll]

I think sub-like designs have a clear niche if you have an undetected dormant jump point entrance into an enemy system, or if you're encountering the enemy in 'neutral' systems, but they have no real way to sneak past guarded jump points, so you often wouldn't be able to make use of them at all when advancing into enemy territory.  I think there are a few roles where a sub-like design would be useful, though:

• The classic commerce raider role - give a small ship with a cloaking device & low-powered thermal-signature-reduced engine a handful of very large slow-loading missile launchers, design some long-range two-stage missiles with ECM and huge ship-killing warheads to fit them, give them active sensors tuned to enemy commercial ship sizes, keep your sensor and MFC off until you find a thermal contact, turn them back off after your missiles hit and reposition using your stealth to avoid active sensors, have a 'sub tender' on the other side of the dormant JP with an appropriate-sized jump drive to let your subs transit, plus colliers/tankers/maintenance ships. . . I think you could build a semi-practical commerce raider at about 3000t, which is the maximum size a military ship can be to use the smallest-sized jump tender you can build with the earliest jump tech, which is pretty small and cheap for something that could kill a commercial ship many times its size
• 'Boomers' - you can target colonies using waypoints, so you can launch missiles at them from any point in a system even with a tiny MFC and no active sensor, which means you could hide a large and slow but stealthy long-deployment ship full of big box launchers with long-range colony-killing missiles far out beyond the outer reaches of a system and threaten any inadequately-protected colony with impunity, probably a good thing to sneak these into systems of NPRs you're currently neutral with when relations start getting bad so you can respond to the start of hostilities with a massive alpha strike
• Spy subs - use ELINT modules instead of missiles
• Special operations subs - stealthy dropships that can land company-sized units of marine commandos on poorly defended colonies without warning
• Fleet subs - ships that are stealthy but still fast enough to keep up with a battle fleet, can be used as scouts and sensor pickets
• Minelayers - I heard mines are bugged at the moment but minelayers can still be useful by dropping sensor buoys, stealth will let them do it safely closer to the enemy where they'd be useful
• Fighter tender - give a small cloaked ship boat bays and some extra supplies instead of missiles so they can resupply fighters while hiding in enemy-held systems, one of these could tend a large number of stealth scout fighters

The commerce raider role could even use active sensor missiles which would allow it to turn off its actives immediately after firing

[StarshipCactus]

I like the idea of stealth ships dropping commandos onto civilian mines on asteroids or comets to seize them. Works better in RP against another play controlled faction than against an NPR, but cool nonetheless.

[Jorgen_CAB]

The biggest problem in Aurora for submarines and them not being all that viable is jump points. You "might" be able to get them in but it will be nearly impossible to get them out if the jump point is guarded. The reason being that you need to be spot on at the JP to jump back. This make submarine tactic a one way trip until the ship is spent. In my opinion this make the submarine analogy more or less moot. The game simply don't support the notion of submarines in that regard.

A "submarine" is basically as stealthy ships nothing else.

What makes submarines so dangerous in water is their ability to stay hidden and also torpedoes are very lethal weapons if you can get close enough to use them.

Another thing is that Aurora uses a pretty simple detection method where a ship is either detected or not... a submarine require allot more to be detected and identified. I would like if Aurora eventually get a more involved detection and identification system that are more like what we find in real life. Would make the scouting game allot more interesting.

Steve have also talked about adding a submarine part where ships can submerge entirely into the Eather which I assume would have both benefits and drawbacks... although I still think that JP camps would be a problem no matter what you do.

Personally I would like for travelling would work a bit more like in Star Wars... where you still make use of hyper lanes but you still can circumvent them and hyperjump to close systems and even within systems. This would create a more diverse and interesting dynamic in wars as there always are opportunities to raid systems with smaller forces but you will be scattered if you don't jump through the hyperplanes... but you can always retreat from a bad situation given enough time to calculate a hyper route to a know system from which that system is connected.

I have raised this question before and some people are strongly against anything that don't allow them to strictly control JP and the more static nature of defense in Aurora... personally I find it more interesting with options and being able to use more strategies and less static warfare. Planets and bases are static enough in my opinion.

[Gabrote42]

Steve have also talked about adding a submarine part where ships can submerge entirely into the Eather which I assume would have both benefits and drawbacks... although I still think that JP camps would be a problem no matter what you do.

I did not know that. I really hope it will be a customizable part, or at least more involved than Hyperdrives were.

[sadoeconomist]

The relatively simple suggestion I thought of for making stealthy designs more viable is to make the max squadron jump radius scale non-linearly with total squadron hull size, so a single small ship is likely to come in many millions of km away from a JP while a full squadron of battleships will tend to arrive very close to the point.  And then if you had the jump radius apply also to how far away you can be from a JP to enter it, lone small ships could run JP blockades in a risky way that requires high stealth and/or speed.  That'd also allow fighter squadrons up to your max jump squadron size to attempt to bypass JP defenses, which I think would also add some very interesting dimensions to design & strategy.  Elaborate JP blockades would still be worthwhile and important to keep out large ships but you'd also need to patrol the system, escort commercial ships, and defend colonies specifically from stealth ships and fighters.

[nuclearslurpee]

Personally I would like for travelling would work a bit more like in Star Wars... where you still make use of hyper lanes but you still can circumvent them and hyperjump to close systems and even within systems. This would create a more diverse and interesting dynamic in wars as there always are opportunities to raid systems with smaller forces but you will be scattered if you don't jump through the hyperplanes... but you can always retreat from a bad situation given enough time to calculate a hyper route to a know system from which that system is connected.

I have raised this question before and some people are strongly against anything that don't allow them to strictly control JP and the more static nature of defense in Aurora... personally I find it more interesting with options and being able to use more strategies and less static warfare. Planets and bases are static enough in my opinion.

The main trouble I think with this kind of mechanic is that the advantage strongly shifts to the offensive side. The attacker can concentrate their force at a single point while the defender must somehow man every significant colony with a sufficient defensive fleet. Alternatively since space is much larger than any fleet can reasonably cover or even cover with sensors an attacker can sneak a small raiding group into any system simply by jumping them in far beyond any sensor range and charging straight towards a civilian lane.

That said, I also do not love the JP-based system as it currently is, as NPR combat tends to be almost exclusively based around jump point engagements and it is so rare to get a pitched battle or as mentioned opportunities for raiding actions. A large reason Precursors are so popular, I think, is because every battle against them is a pitched engagement rather than one fleet jumping into a system and hoping they don't get torn to shreds before jump shock wears off.

Mechanically a big issue with jump points is that they are implemented in a non-geographic manner. This is in comparison to Star Wars for example, which has the available hyperspace lanes limited by the physical locations of stars, planets, black holes, nebulae, and other astronomical phenomena which leads to a "geography" of space where you cannot just travel from A to B, you must travel for instance from A to B to C to D... which would allow a larger number of potential hyperspace/jump lanes but still preserve a concept of a "front line". In Aurora, there is no concept of geography so a ship could easily jump between any two systems if not limited by jump points. If we had a stellar geography (I need a better term for this...) then we could define hyperspace jump distances and use that as a limiting factor in one or more ways.

While adding this would be a massive change to Aurora, both mechanically and code-wise, it would allow a "hyperdrive" component to work quite well, given a limited range dependent on technology and ideally a lack of squadron jumping capability to ensure that hyperdrive-capable fleets are weaker than other combat fleets in exchange for their strategic flexibility. This way jump point forcing remains at the core of space combat but there are more options to try and weaken a jump point defense besides directly forcing the issue.

Alternatively...

The relatively simple suggestion I thought of for making stealthy designs more viable is to make the max squadron jump radius scale non-linearly with total squadron hull size, so a single small ship is likely to come in many millions of km away from a JP while a full squadron of battleships will tend to arrive very close to the point.  And then if you had the jump radius apply also to how far away you can be from a JP to enter it, lone small ships could run JP blockades in a risky way that requires high stealth and/or speed.  That'd also allow fighter squadrons up to your max jump squadron size to attempt to bypass JP defenses, which I think would also add some very interesting dimensions to design & strategy.  Elaborate JP blockades would still be worthwhile and important to keep out large ships but you'd also need to patrol the system, escort commercial ships, and defend colonies specifically from stealth ships and fighters.

This is brilliant and I love it.

Maybe the distance should scale inversely with jump drive size rather than squadron total hull size, though. Otherwise at some point in the tech tree we may start seeing small squadrons (2 ships, or even just a single jump-capable ship) of large ships doing squadron jumps which is a bit of a cheesy way to get around a jump gate defense. Tying it directly to jump drive size promotes some more interesting strategies and has less of a risk of potentially devaluing jump point defenses as a barrier to large fleets.

[Jorgen_CAB]

The main trouble I think with this kind of mechanic is that the advantage strongly shifts to the offensive side. The attacker can concentrate their force at a single point while the defender must somehow man every significant colony with a sufficient defensive fleet. Alternatively since space is much larger than any fleet can reasonably cover or even cover with sensors an attacker can sneak a small raiding group into any system simply by jumping them in far beyond any sensor range and charging straight towards a civilian lane.

That said, I also do not love the JP-based system as it currently is, as NPR combat tends to be almost exclusively based around jump point engagements and it is so rare to get a pitched battle or as mentioned opportunities for raiding actions. A large reason Precursors are so popular, I think, is because every battle against them is a pitched engagement rather than one fleet jumping into a system and hoping they don't get torn to shreds before jump shock wears off.

Mechanically a big issue with jump points is that they are implemented in a non-geographic manner. This is in comparison to Star Wars for example, which has the available hyperspace lanes limited by the physical locations of stars, planets, black holes, nebulae, and other astronomical phenomena which leads to a "geography" of space where you cannot just travel from A to B, you must travel for instance from A to B to C to D... which would allow a larger number of potential hyperspace/jump lanes but still preserve a concept of a "front line". In Aurora, there is no concept of geography so a ship could easily jump between any two systems if not limited by jump points. If we had a stellar geography (I need a better term for this...) then we could define hyperspace jump distances and use that as a limiting factor in one or more ways.

While adding this would be a massive change to Aurora, both mechanically and code-wise, it would allow a "hyperdrive" component to work quite well, given a limited range dependent on technology and ideally a lack of squadron jumping capability to ensure that hyperdrive-capable fleets are weaker than other combat fleets in exchange for their strategic flexibility. This way jump point forcing remains at the core of space combat but there are more options to try and weaken a jump point defense besides directly forcing the issue.

First off I never said you would not be unlimited... there would still be JP between systems limiting which system you jump between. Just not limited from jumping at the JP all the time. It should be more effective jumping from JP to JP so for the most part that is what you would do. You could plot jumps without being at the JP but they would be "wild" so a feet jumping would end up dispersed around a system and there could be other limitations such as strain on engines and a big risk of engine failure so a cost in MSP. The further from the JP the more likely you are with engine failure or something. This way I could be quite vulnerable to jump in a fleet if the enemy can find and defeat that fleet in pieces if they are prepared.

To be honest I also don't think it is a problem with being forced to spread defenses out and forcing the offensive... it would make ground forces way more important so you force an attacker to commit large resources to any serious campaign and actually protecting trade lanes become important. Ground forces will tie up enemy forces long enough for a reaction force to relive any sieges. You need serious thought about patrolling space and placing reaction forces along important trade routes.

I obviously think such a mechanic still need jumps into enemy territory difficult or expensive or both unless you follow the hyperplanes. The JP could easily be made to act like this terrain that you find in these systems and which connect the systems with each other. There just is a much broader way you can enter into system to avoid the stalemate with JP camping which is too easy to do effectively.

There would need to be tradeoffs between how you enter a system... especially if you decide to attack it with a large fleet. But in my opinion it would be more fun in general playing the cat and mouse game with the enemy. We also could have more low intensive war where both sides never really commits but mostly resort to raiding using something more akin to submarine warfare.

I know that some people don't like this concept and I respect their opinion but I simply don't agree and think the static nature of JP is far from optimal from a strategical perspective of giving options for gameplay. It also would make the game more like naval warfare on Earth where there are very little bottlenecks, we still manage to find large fleet battles in history despite that don't we. 

The relatively simple suggestion I thought of for making stealthy designs more viable is to make the max squadron jump radius scale non-linearly with total squadron hull size, so a single small ship is likely to come in many millions of km away from a JP while a full squadron of battleships will tend to arrive very close to the point.  And then if you had the jump radius apply also to how far away you can be from a JP to enter it, lone small ships could run JP blockades in a risky way that requires high stealth and/or speed.  That'd also allow fighter squadrons up to your max jump squadron size to attempt to bypass JP defenses, which I think would also add some very interesting dimensions to design & strategy.  Elaborate JP blockades would still be worthwhile and important to keep out large ships but you'd also need to patrol the system, escort commercial ships, and defend colonies specifically from stealth ships and fighters.

I still think it make little difference as you still have to travel to the JP to get your ships back... this is the main issue in my opinion. You need a way to get ships both in and out of a system in order for raiding to ever be a true thing in Aurora.

When Steve was working on Aurora 2 he thought of a very different system where there were no true JP but ships could instead hyper jump between stars and the distance between them was a constraint as you needed fuel for the jump and it would take time and there could also be issues. This would have opened up the game in a way I certainly would have liked much more than the hyperplane system which make wars sometimes quite static instead of dynamic.

[nuclearslurpee]

To be honest I also don't think it is a problem with being forced to spread defenses out and forcing the offensive... it would make ground forces way more important so you force an attacker to commit large resources to any serious campaign and actually protecting trade lanes become important. Ground forces will tie up enemy forces long enough for a reaction force to relive any sieges. You need serious thought about patrolling space and placing reaction forces along important trade routes.

In my mind, the major issue with a system that allows "free jumping" (even with significant restrictions) is the amount of damage that can be done by a tactic which is prohibitively expensive to counter even if the actual colony or base under attack is not taken by conquest. The example I have in mind is one where an enemy takes, say, 50% of their fleet and hyper-jumps into Sol or another major system with a well-developed presence (100s million population, shipyards, civilian lines throughout the system, and so on) which is defended by, say, 20-25% of my own fleet (say I have a few major bases like this, plus fleets deployed at critical JPs). Even if the colony is not taken, the enemy fleet can destroy a large amount of very expensive infrastructure before jumping out assuming they can defeat my fleet with their numbers advantage. As it is utterly impossible to defend all such critical locations adequately to defeat such a tactic, the only counter is to do the same thing, effectively leading to gameplay dominated by a hybrid of alpha-striking and MAD strategies which I at least find unappealing.

Certainly it should be possible to find a mechanic and balance such that warfare becomes fluid and maneuver-dominant instead of static as it is now, but this balance would be very difficult to find and I'm afraid more work than Steve would realistically be willing to put into what is really a game balance problem instead of a fun and exciting programming problem. Essentially, the challenge would be how to balance a hyperspace-type mechanic so that a prepared defensive fleet can defeat a larger jumped-in offensive fleet (here travel time even within a system is a problem - it could take days or even weeks to intercept such a fleet!), yet without overpowering the mechanic so that it is almost useless. That's a tricky and unstable balance point to find I think.

I know that some people don't like this concept and I respect their opinion but I simply don't agree and think the static nature of JP is far from optimal from a strategical perspective of giving options for gameplay. It also would make the game more like naval warfare on Earth where there are very little bottlenecks, we still manage to find large fleet battles in history despite that don't we. 

Personally I also would prefer an approach that wasn't as JP-centric and allowed for more fluid maneuver, scouting, etc. and not warfare dominated by JP assaults. However the one thing JPs do very well is force a sense of "geography" into a naval war in that any attack has to follow a well-defined route...attackers cannot simply materialize anywhere and open fire, there's a logical route and logistics train involved even if a stealthy surprise attack is still possible. Pearl Harbor? Maybe. Hypothetical Japanese carrier strike on Norfolk? Not so much. The issue JPs have is that they're simply a very blunt solution to that problem as it stands and thus goes too far to the other extreme, you can't do a Pearl Harbor because the entire map is Gibraltars and Suezes essentially.

If star systems in Aurora mapped to an actual map somehow (and this was clearly visible to the player), then we could have a literal distance between systems which would be an excellent basis for a hyperdrive mechanic.

snip

I still think it make little difference as you still have to travel to the JP to get your ships back... this is the main issue in my opinion. You need a way to get ships both in and out of a system in order for raiding to ever be a true thing in Aurora.

I wonder if a "simple" fix would be to let such a mechanic work two ways, i.e. a jump drive with a large (effective) squadron jump distance can enter a jump point from that same distance or some fraction e.g. half the distance. This way the jump point is still central but a small stealth ship can skirt the edge of JP defense fleet range to make the jump back to safety. If a small, sneaky ship has millions of km squadron jump radius it should not be impossible to sneak back through the JP even against a large defensive fleet unless the latter has a very extensive sensor net in place.

This would require small system defense fleets to be in place to intercept such raiders while otherwise limiting the damage they can do to be somewhat less than apocalyptic in scope and preserving Aurora's sense of geography. If you establish a good system for getting raiding fleets in and out you can even force the opponent to divide his JP defense fleets opening up the chance to force the JP at better odds.

[sadoeconomist]

I still think it make little difference as you still have to travel to the JP to get your ships back. . .  this is the main issue in my opinion.  You need a way to get ships both in and out of a system in order for raiding to ever be a true thing in Aurora.

I wonder if a "simple" fix would be to let such a mechanic work two ways, i. e.  a jump drive with a large (effective) squadron jump distance can enter a jump point from that same distance

I guess I was unclear, that's what I was trying to say in my original post with

And then if you had the jump radius apply also to how far away you can be from a JP to enter it

If you did it that way, a small and stealthy ship could sneak both in and out of jump points undetected, and something like a fighter squadron or a small, high speed purpose-built blockade runner might be able to get close enough to jump through sheer speed before being intercepted, but large ships would have to get very close to the JP and face any defenses there to get in or out.

This is brilliant and I love it.

Maybe the distance should scale inversely with jump drive size rather than squadron total hull size, though.  Otherwise at some point in the tech tree we may start seeing small squadrons (2 ships, or even just a single jump-capable ship) of large ships doing squadron jumps which is a bit of a cheesy way to get around a jump gate defense.  Tying it directly to jump drive size promotes some more interesting strategies and has less of a risk of potentially devaluing jump point defenses as a barrier to large fleets.

That's kind of exactly what I wanted to see, though, but not with a truly large ship - I want to see a lone 6000t at best ship, maybe ~3000t to be more on the safe side, or a squadron of about 6-12 fighters with the same tonnage, being able to try to run JP blockades.  What I'm thinking is that anything bigger than that would arrive too close to a JP to avoid being easily detected by an active sensor, even with a cloaking device, which would likely swiftly lead to its destruction unless it came through as part of a full assault force.  The nonlinearity of both the game's current sensor model and what I'm proposing for jump drives would cut harder and harder from both directions as a ship's size increased, so the biggest ship that could dare to try to sneak past a JP would be pretty small unless you badly out-teched your opponent.

IMO it's actually harsher to limit it by squadron hull size than jump drive size, because a squadron hull size mechanic would strongly encourage you to send lone ships which would wind up tens of millions of km from each other with an enemy JP camp between them, while tying the jump radius to jump drive size would encourage jumping together in maximum size squadrons which could be regrouped into a significant force more easily.  You'd just need to make the upper end of squadron hull size you can practically sneak through a JP much smaller than any ship that's a viable main fleet combatant.

[Jorgen_CAB]

To be honest I also don't think it is a problem with being forced to spread defenses out and forcing the offensive... it would make ground forces way more important so you force an attacker to commit large resources to any serious campaign and actually protecting trade lanes become important. Ground forces will tie up enemy forces long enough for a reaction force to relive any sieges. You need serious thought about patrolling space and placing reaction forces along important trade routes.

In my mind, the major issue with a system that allows "free jumping" (even with significant restrictions) is the amount of damage that can be done by a tactic which is prohibitively expensive to counter even if the actual colony or base under attack is not taken by conquest. The example I have in mind is one where an enemy takes, say, 50% of their fleet and hyper-jumps into Sol or another major system with a well-developed presence (100s million population, shipyards, civilian lines throughout the system, and so on) which is defended by, say, 20-25% of my own fleet (say I have a few major bases like this, plus fleets deployed at critical JPs). Even if the colony is not taken, the enemy fleet can destroy a large amount of very expensive infrastructure before jumping out assuming they can defeat my fleet with their numbers advantage. As it is utterly impossible to defend all such critical locations adequately to defeat such a tactic, the only counter is to do the same thing, effectively leading to gameplay dominated by a hybrid of alpha-striking and MAD strategies which I at least find unappealing.

Certainly it should be possible to find a mechanic and balance such that warfare becomes fluid and maneuver-dominant instead of static as it is now, but this balance would be very difficult to find and I'm afraid more work than Steve would realistically be willing to put into what is really a game balance problem instead of a fun and exciting programming problem. Essentially, the challenge would be how to balance a hyperspace-type mechanic so that a prepared defensive fleet can defeat a larger jumped-in offensive fleet (here travel time even within a system is a problem - it could take days or even weeks to intercept such a fleet!), yet without overpowering the mechanic so that it is almost useless. That's a tricky and unstable balance point to find I think.

I know that some people don't like this concept and I respect their opinion but I simply don't agree and think the static nature of JP is far from optimal from a strategical perspective of giving options for gameplay. It also would make the game more like naval warfare on Earth where there are very little bottlenecks, we still manage to find large fleet battles in history despite that don't we. 

Personally I also would prefer an approach that wasn't as JP-centric and allowed for more fluid maneuver, scouting, etc. and not warfare dominated by JP assaults. However the one thing JPs do very well is force a sense of "geography" into a naval war in that any attack has to follow a well-defined route...attackers cannot simply materialize anywhere and open fire, there's a logical route and logistics train involved even if a stealthy surprise attack is still possible. Pearl Harbor? Maybe. Hypothetical Japanese carrier strike on Norfolk? Not so much. The issue JPs have is that they're simply a very blunt solution to that problem as it stands and thus goes too far to the other extreme, you can't do a Pearl Harbor because the entire map is Gibraltars and Suezes essentially.

If star systems in Aurora mapped to an actual map somehow (and this was clearly visible to the player), then we could have a literal distance between systems which would be an excellent basis for a hyperdrive mechanic.

snip

I still think it make little difference as you still have to travel to the JP to get your ships back... this is the main issue in my opinion. You need a way to get ships both in and out of a system in order for raiding to ever be a true thing in Aurora.

I wonder if a "simple" fix would be to let such a mechanic work two ways, i.e. a jump drive with a large (effective) squadron jump distance can enter a jump point from that same distance or some fraction e.g. half the distance. This way the jump point is still central but a small stealth ship can skirt the edge of JP defense fleet range to make the jump back to safety. If a small, sneaky ship has millions of km squadron jump radius it should not be impossible to sneak back through the JP even against a large defensive fleet unless the latter has a very extensive sensor net in place.

This would require small system defense fleets to be in place to intercept such raiders while otherwise limiting the damage they can do to be somewhat less than apocalyptic in scope and preserving Aurora's sense of geography. If you establish a good system for getting raiding fleets in and out you can even force the opponent to divide his JP defense fleets opening up the chance to force the JP at better odds.

I think you missied in my post that I still said you are limited to JP systems... there is no way you would be able to just jump into Sol.

In Steves Aurora 2 you would be limited to range and there would be some fuel costs and some other things to consider as well

Personally I don't care one bit if it is hard to defend against... you can do exactly the same to the enemy so if they jump half their fleet into your space you can jump half of yours into their space and do the same damage. This is how fleet combat work in real life to and you would have to use patrols, and sensor nets in order to detect enemy fleets. In Aurora 2 I guess you would even be able to build large sensors to detect large enemy formation in hyperspace to get advanced warning, even if you don't know exactly where they would end up you could then react to some degree.

I think it is just a bad argument that it you can't defend... you could defend as you can do that in real life as well as you would in the game to. It is all about being able to patrol and get advanced warning enough to counter strike or you strike first. If you send ships into enemy space they will have to divert large resources into defending and can't use a large part of their fleet to attack you. You also will have limited range as ships still have to jump between systems and there would be a cost in MSP and ships also need fuel to go far as well as limited by maintenance costs and ammunition stores. You would have to use spy ships to spy on their fleet movements and naval bases. The game would force you to be more pro active rather than reactive which in my book equals more fun. Right now it is way too easy to spot an enemy fleet heading towoards your territory by simply monitoring JP a few jumps from your territory.

If you only allow military jump drives to use this system then the range and operative sustainability become rather limited as you can have commercial engine support ships follow that fleet around. You are quite limited in troop ship capacity and so on.

I se no reason why we could have ships jumping in or out of systems in a much wider cone if we restrict it to military jump drives and also give it an MSP cost (due to strain on the jump drive) doing so. It would open up the game to allot more interesting strategies and remove static JP camps to some degree. Defending JP would still be important but you also would need to patrol interior system in fear of enemy raiders and minor fleet forces. A larger strike on a system could now be using this dispersed format too which have its own pros and cons as you now arrive dispersed and not concentrated.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I still think it make little difference as you still have to travel to the JP to get your ships back. . .  this is the main issue in my opinion.  You need a way to get ships both in and out of a system in order for raiding to ever be a true thing in Aurora.

I wonder if a "simple" fix would be to let such a mechanic work two ways, i. e.  a jump drive with a large (effective) squadron jump distance can enter a jump point from that same distance

I guess I was unclear, that's what I was trying to say in my original post with

Yeah... I think I simply misread that a little...

That is basically what I suggest as well.

The ranges have to be allot further though as it is way too easy to still track things if the distances are only a few million km. It would have to be in the hundreds of millions if not more if it would ever work or be worthwhile. I would like if we could more easily slip in stealthy and/or smaller ships into enemy territory and use raiding or even stealth invasion forces if you spend enough resources to do that rather than smash the enemy JP defenses (which probably is easier). It would give os a few more interesting role-play mechanics to play with.

[nuclearslurpee]

I think you missied in my post that I still said you are limited to JP systems... there is no way you would be able to just jump into Sol.

In Steves Aurora 2 you would be limited to range and there would be some fuel costs and some other things to consider as well

snip

This is how fleet combat work in real life to and you would have to use patrols, and sensor nets in order to detect enemy fleets. In Aurora 2 I guess you would even be able to build large sensors to detect large enemy formation in hyperspace to get advanced warning, even if you don't know exactly where they would end up you could then react to some degree

I think it is just a bad argument that it you can't defend... you could defend as you can do that in real life as well as you would in the game to. It is all about being able to patrol and get advanced warning enough to counter strike or you strike first.

I admit to not being familiar with the plans for Aurora 2 (which I assume ultimately became C# i.e. Aurora 1.1 so to speak). However the point I'm trying to get at is that the idea of limited hyperspace range only works if there is an underlying concept of stellar cartography that includes a physical distance between star systems. Presently, Aurora does not have that - the only concept of "distance" between systems is the number of jump points and the in-system travel distance between those JPs. For multiple reasons this is not a suitable analogue for physical distance between systems, not least of which that the "physical" distance by such a metric would change if a dormant JP were discovered.

In real-life naval operations, geographic distance is a critical factor not because it prevents an operation at long range but because a long-range operation requires exponentially more logistical capability and because a fleet crossing a large distance is more vulnerable to interception if and when spotted by the enemy.

If Aurora 2 or another hypothetical future version of C# transitioned to a stellar cartography model in two or three dimensions such that each system had a definite physical location in space, then hyperspace jumping becomes a very logical and sensible idea, particularly combined with e.g. hyperspace sensors and the like.

Yeah... I think I simply misread that a little...

That is basically what I suggest as well.

The ranges have to be allot further though as it is way too easy to still track things if the distances are only a few million km. It would have to be in the hundreds of millions if not more if it would ever work or be worthwhile. I would like if we could more easily slip in stealthy and/or smaller ships into enemy territory and use raiding or even stealth invasion forces if you spend enough resources to do that rather than smash the enemy JP defenses (which probably is easier). It would give os a few more interesting role-play mechanics to play with.

100s of millions might be excessive at early tech levels, but tens of millions would be reasonable and if you can jump in a fast, sneaky ship of perhaps 30-80 HS at that distance in the early-mid game it should be able to evade the JP picket - or at least draw off a few of the defenders which opens the way for an easier JP assault. Jump in several of these ships in all different directions and the enemy picket will not be able to chase them all down. It is not strictly needed to jump out of range of passive sensors, simply to jump far enough away from the JP to facilitate an escape. Of course this needs to increase with tech level.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I think you missied in my post that I still said you are limited to JP systems... there is no way you would be able to just jump into Sol.

In Steves Aurora 2 you would be limited to range and there would be some fuel costs and some other things to consider as well

snip

This is how fleet combat work in real life to and you would have to use patrols, and sensor nets in order to detect enemy fleets. In Aurora 2 I guess you would even be able to build large sensors to detect large enemy formation in hyperspace to get advanced warning, even if you don't know exactly where they would end up you could then react to some degree

I think it is just a bad argument that it you can't defend... you could defend as you can do that in real life as well as you would in the game to. It is all about being able to patrol and get advanced warning enough to counter strike or you strike first.

I admit to not being familiar with the plans for Aurora 2 (which I assume ultimately became C# i.e. Aurora 1.1 so to speak). However the point I'm trying to get at is that the idea of limited hyperspace range only works if there is an underlying concept of stellar cartography that includes a physical distance between star systems. Presently, Aurora does not have that - the only concept of "distance" between systems is the number of jump points and the in-system travel distance between those JPs. For multiple reasons this is not a suitable analogue for physical distance between systems, not least of which that the "physical" distance by such a metric would change if a dormant JP were discovered.

In real-life naval operations, geographic distance is a critical factor not because it prevents an operation at long range but because a long-range operation requires exponentially more logistical capability and because a fleet crossing a large distance is more vulnerable to interception if and when spotted by the enemy.

If Aurora 2 or another hypothetical future version of C# transitioned to a stellar cartography model in two or three dimensions such that each system had a definite physical location in space, then hyperspace jumping becomes a very logical and sensible idea, particularly combined with e.g. hyperspace sensors and the like.

Yeah... I think I simply misread that a little...

That is basically what I suggest as well.

The ranges have to be allot further though as it is way too easy to still track things if the distances are only a few million km. It would have to be in the hundreds of millions if not more if it would ever work or be worthwhile. I would like if we could more easily slip in stealthy and/or smaller ships into enemy territory and use raiding or even stealth invasion forces if you spend enough resources to do that rather than smash the enemy JP defenses (which probably is easier). It would give os a few more interesting role-play mechanics to play with.

100s of millions might be excessive at early tech levels, but tens of millions would be reasonable and if you can jump in a fast, sneaky ship of perhaps 30-80 HS at that distance in the early-mid game it should be able to evade the JP picket - or at least draw off a few of the defenders which opens the way for an easier JP assault. Jump in several of these ships in all different directions and the enemy picket will not be able to chase them all down. It is not strictly needed to jump out of range of passive sensors, simply to jump far enough away from the JP to facilitate an escape. Of course this needs to increase with tech level.

But I still talked about system being linked by JP so you can only jump between them and that will provide enough of range and stellar geography, that was the whole point. Aurora 2 was entirely different beast as that game DID consider distance between stars and travel would no longer be instant either. You can read about Steves earlier ideas here... http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=3011.0

The range from which you can jump between systems would obviously have to be measured based on balance. But at the lowest tech level a size 5 resolution 5 sensor can spot nearly 15mkm if you also space them out around a JP you can easily scan twice that distance at that resolution for a reasonable price in research using small sensor stations. Larger resolutions such as say 50 (or 2500t) you could easily cover about 60-70mkm around a JP.... and this is at the lowest tech level... just three levels above and you cover the same distances at roughly twice that. The higher you go in sensor tech the more likely it also is you can afford a decently sized sensor component too.

If you are smart you just space out a probe of size 50 resolution 1 a few hundred million km away from the JP. You don't need to cover the entire space from the JP to the sensor net... nothing will be able to get throw that which is not smaller than 50t and it will not be super expensive to create the net, just a bit of micro management.  At tech level four each probe would scan about 10mkm with resolution 1 so you could space them out at roughly 20mkm apart.

Stealth technology is not really an early choice either.

If we like to get anything with a decent size through a JP the distances need to be rather substantial in my opinion.