Author Topic: Newtonian Aurora  (Read 143760 times)

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Offline orfeusz

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Re: Newtonian Aurora
« Reply #15 on: August 30, 2011, 05:59:28 AM »
for the engines part which directly influence also missiles...it's like that mass effect quotation, were there are two soldiers outside of the capital and their sergeant is speaking to them:
"you know, in space there is no gravity. So something which moves will move on forever"
"yessir!"
"so, you do not shoot by the eye, because otherwise, somewhere, sometime, someone is going to receive a nasty fifty ton surprise of a hit"
"yessir!"
"AND THIS IS WHY YOU WAIT FOR THE SENSORS TO GIVE YOU THE ALL CLEAR!"
"yessir"


So will there be such things? Shoot something while moving reallllly fast and BOOM? Kinetic energy more powerful then nuclear bombs?

Also bombing planets from enormous distances? So fast that intercepting is impossible? (like bombing planets in Lost Fleet?)
« Last Edit: August 30, 2011, 06:01:42 AM by orfeusz »
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Offline chrislocke2000

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Re: Newtonian Aurora
« Reply #16 on: August 30, 2011, 06:10:41 AM »
Sounds like a fantastic project, can't wait to see some more details.

From the designs you have posted it looks like fuel logistics will become a very significant part of the game and also part of ship and engine design. I guess once play tested a bit you can tweak fuel consumption / efficiency to see balance proportion of ships that will be taken up with fuel stores and also mining and fuel production rates.

I guess boarding actions are going to pretty much going to become a thing of the past.

I agree that combat is going to need a re-work. Perhaps ships will need a manoeuvre rating as well as acceleration rating to indicate how well they can adjust course quickly to avoid fire - this could be adjusted on ships by the use of thrusters as an additional component to engines. Chance to hit then become related to this factor as much as base speed.

For weapon systems I can see energy weapons needing quite a change as well. Perhaps you have two weapon ratings - one to deal with engagement speed ie the actual speed of the hostile and another to deal with the manoeuvrability of the hostile as above. Otherwise people will need to have very significant turret tracking to deal with heavy burn ships.

Of course Steve if you need any help play testing any of your changes happy to help!....
 

Offline Gidoran

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Re: Newtonian Aurora
« Reply #17 on: August 30, 2011, 07:24:36 AM »
Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=4019. msg39053#msg39053 date=1314636543
Probably not, at least in the short term.  I am going to leave as much of normal Aurora in place as I possibly can, given the amount of work the changes already planned will require.  They won't be called transnewtonian elements though  - more likely anti-gravity elements :)

Steve

This sounds incredibly cool, but why not call them Transuranic? There is that supposed Island of Stability that we haven't managed to get to yet.

hxxp: en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Island_of_stability
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Offline Echo35

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Re: Newtonian Aurora
« Reply #18 on: August 30, 2011, 09:09:37 AM »
for the engines part which directly influence also missiles...it's like that mass effect quotation, were there are two soldiers outside of the capital and their sergeant is speaking to them:
"you know, in space there is no gravity. So something which moves will move on forever"
"yessir!"
"so, you do not shoot by the eye, because otherwise, somewhere, sometime, someone is going to receive a nasty fifty ton surprise of a hit"
"yessir!"
"AND THIS IS WHY YOU WAIT FOR THE SENSORS TO GIVE YOU THE ALL CLEAR!"
"yessir"

feature=channel_video_title

And THAT is why Sir Issac Newton is the DEADLIEST son of a bitch in space!
". . . and that is why Sir Issac Newton is the deadliest son of a b*#ch in space!"
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Newtonian Aurora
« Reply #19 on: August 30, 2011, 09:59:58 AM »
Sounds like a fantastic project, can't wait to see some more details.

From the designs you have posted it looks like fuel logistics will become a very significant part of the game and also part of ship and engine design. I guess once play tested a bit you can tweak fuel consumption / efficiency to see balance proportion of ships that will be taken up with fuel stores and also mining and fuel production rates.

I guess boarding actions are going to pretty much going to become a thing of the past.

I agree that combat is going to need a re-work. Perhaps ships will need a manoeuvre rating as well as acceleration rating to indicate how well they can adjust course quickly to avoid fire - this could be adjusted on ships by the use of thrusters as an additional component to engines. Chance to hit then become related to this factor as much as base speed.

For weapon systems I can see energy weapons needing quite a change as well. Perhaps you have two weapon ratings - one to deal with engagement speed ie the actual speed of the hostile and another to deal with the manoeuvrability of the hostile as above. Otherwise people will need to have very significant turret tracking to deal with heavy burn ships.

Of course Steve if you need any help play testing any of your changes happy to help!....

Fuel logistics will definitely be a huge part of the game. A lot more fuel will be consumed so I think I might radically improve the extraction rate of Sorium from gas giants.

I have been loooking at course changes. The ideal course change mechanic is going to one that is simple to understand yet gives the right feel for the physics involved. For the moment I am working with a one degree course change requiring delta-V equal to 1/90th of your speed. This is very simplistically based on the fact that reversing course and achieveing the same speed requires a delta-V equal to double your speed, so if 180 degrees = 2x speed then 1 degree = 1/90th your speed. So if you are moving at 2000 km/s, a five degree course change will require 5/90 x 2000 km/s = 111.11 km/s of delta-V. If your spacecraft has an acceleration rate of 15 mp/s then the course change would require an engine burn of 123 minutes. I may make this more simple and use 1% of velocity per degree rather than 1/90th. It is slightly more generous but far easier to visualize for players. In this case, the above would require an engine burn of 111 minutes.

Given the relative difficulty of altering course and the fuel requirements to reach high speeds, I think average speeds may actually be a little lower in Aurora FTL. Therefore it may turn out the existing tracking ratings are actually too high :). I'll see how playtesting goes. Boarding actions may actually become easier too. I will be basing it on speed and course differential so if you can match course and speed, you will be able to board ships that would be moving too fast in normal Aurora.

Steve
 

Offline ndkid

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Re: Newtonian Aurora
« Reply #20 on: August 30, 2011, 11:15:29 AM »
Steve,

I apologize if you mentioned this in your post about the new engine design, but will you continue to have the limit of one engine type per ship? It seems to me that one route a player may be interested in trying is a ship that has high-efficiency low-thrust engines for long-distance travel, while using low-efficiency high-thrust engines in a combat situation.
 

Offline Echo35

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Re: Newtonian Aurora
« Reply #21 on: August 30, 2011, 11:23:12 AM »
I have been loooking at course changes. The ideal course change mechanic is going to one that is simple to understand yet gives the right feel for the physics involved. For the moment I am working with a one degree course change requiring delta-V equal to 1/90th of your speed. This is very simplistically based on the fact that reversing course and achieveing the same speed requires a delta-V equal to double your speed, so if 180 degrees = 2x speed then 1 degree = 1/90th your speed. So if you are moving at 2000 km/s, a five degree course change will require 5/90 x 2000 km/s = 111.11 km/s of delta-V. If your spacecraft has an acceleration rate of 15 mp/s then the course change would require an engine burn of 123 minutes. I may make this more simple and use 1% of velocity per degree rather than 1/90th. It is slightly more generous but far easier to visualize for players. In this case, the above would require an engine burn of 111 minutes.

I own Attack Vector: Tactical. I can totally bust out the math if you want :P
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Offline Beersatron

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Re: Newtonian Aurora
« Reply #22 on: August 30, 2011, 11:25:09 AM »
Honor Harrington.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Newtonian Aurora
« Reply #23 on: August 30, 2011, 11:35:07 AM »
Honor Harrington.

Well ships will be accelerating at 1-2G rather than 500G+ but there should be some similarities in the way that battles develop. Also, the current model gives a lot of room for expansion into higher tech levels with inertial compensators and much higher acceleration rates. I want to keep it relatively straightforward to begin with though.

Steve
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Newtonian Aurora
« Reply #24 on: August 30, 2011, 11:36:50 AM »
Steve,

I apologize if you mentioned this in your post about the new engine design, but will you continue to have the limit of one engine type per ship? It seems to me that one route a player may be interested in trying is a ship that has high-efficiency low-thrust engines for long-distance travel, while using low-efficiency high-thrust engines in a combat situation.


Initially I will have the one engine type per ship rule. It solves a lot of potential issues. Besides, if have two sets of engines, each set of engines will be handicapped by the mass of the other so it may not be efficient overall.

Steve
 

Offline Charlie Beeler

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Re: Newtonian Aurora
« Reply #25 on: August 30, 2011, 11:39:59 AM »
<snip> Boarding actions may actually become easier too. I will be basing it on speed and course differential so if you can match course and speed, you will be able to board ships that would be moving too fast in normal Aurora.

Steve
If I may suggest...  require some form of ship to ship linking.  First the assaulting ship/shuttle/etc must successfully grapple/tractor/whatever and then successfully breach, if opposed, before boarders cross.  
Amateurs study tactics, Professionals study logistics - paraphrase attributed to Gen Omar Bradley
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Newtonian Aurora
« Reply #26 on: August 30, 2011, 11:41:26 AM »
I own Attack Vector: Tactical. I can totally bust out the math if you want :P

I wouldn't mind knowing how Attack Vector: Tactical handles it. My research online hasn't been very productive on this particular question yet. My intention though is to go with something that reflects the difficulty in changing course at high speed, is easy for players to understand and generally follows the applicable physical laws, without the requirement to follow those laws exactly

Steve
 

Offline chrislocke2000

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Re: Newtonian Aurora
« Reply #27 on: August 30, 2011, 12:06:15 PM »
Congratulations for getting me well and truly distracted from work today by the way!

Was just thinking a little more about tactical implications. Looking at your example cruiser, using rounded numbers and some noddy maths - if the ship is doing 4000 km/s its going to take it about 576m k to slow down to zero. That's about the range of my best size sensor so if something is coming the other way at the same speed on an intercept I can expect to be getting up close and personal with them whilst still at significant speed. It also means it's going to take a couple of days for the fleet to come round and make a second approach. That feels like maybe too little reaction time and too long on any re-engagement time.

Weapons wise it also looks to be leaning very heavily towards the massive volley strikes with missiles once in range and also maybe lots of energy weapons with reduced size and recharge rate.

Maybe some option for limited higher g manoeuvres would be a good way to help with this.
 

Offline Echo35

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Re: Newtonian Aurora
« Reply #28 on: August 30, 2011, 12:21:29 PM »
I wouldn't mind knowing how Attack Vector: Tactical handles it. My research online hasn't been very productive on this particular question yet. My intention though is to go with something that reflects the difficulty in changing course at high speed, is easy for players to understand and generally follows the applicable physical laws, without the requirement to follow those laws exactly

Steve

I'd be happy to write up a quick summary of it once I get out of work.
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Offline Elouda

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Re: Newtonian Aurora
« Reply #29 on: August 30, 2011, 12:37:14 PM »
Firstly, a big thanks to Steve for another incredible development for Aurora. Very much looking forward to this.

Congratulations for getting me well and truly distracted from work today by the way!

Was just thinking a little more about tactical implications. Looking at your example cruiser, using rounded numbers and some noddy maths - if the ship is doing 4000 km/s its going to take it about 576m k to slow down to zero. That's about the range of my best size sensor so if something is coming the other way at the same speed on an intercept I can expect to be getting up close and personal with them whilst still at significant speed. It also means it's going to take a couple of days for the fleet to come round and make a second approach. That feels like maybe too little reaction time and too long on any re-engagement time.

Weapons wise it also looks to be leaning very heavily towards the massive volley strikes with missiles once in range and also maybe lots of energy weapons with reduced size and recharge rate.

Maybe some option for limited higher g manoeuvres would be a good way to help with this.

Maybe reintroduce the Hyperdrive as a kind of 'overload' function for engines? Maybe missiles too for final attack runs?